Entries by Kimo Ukulele

The Dusky Rose Tenor Ukulele

  I’m calling this The Dusky Rose Tenor Ukulele.   The  tenor ukulele is built from a combination of tone woods that I haven’t used in the recent past: curly big leaf maple and red cedar.  The Maple speaks for itself. This Maple blank was originally a guitar carve top, but I saw a few nice ukulules […]

The Vader Tenor Uke

The Vader Tenor Uke was delivered late last year.  I don’t usually give my projects names but sometimes it just happens.  It just struck me that way from the start. I do recall that The Force Awakens was showing on the tele about the time the I was jointing the top and back.   The request […]

Hula Hips Ukulele with Rosewood and Engleman Spruce

Here’s a Hula Hips Ukulele with Rosewood and Engleman Spruce. The Hula Hips Tenor is a wide body tenor–in other words, a Grand Concert Tenor.  I added a little to the upper bout and 1/2″  to the lower and also lengthened the body by 1/4″.  This is the pattern I used for my first ukuleles back in […]

Custom Tenor Ukulele of Mun Ebony and Adirondak Spruce

The usual wood request for custom ukulele is Hawaiian Koa but Bob wanted something more traditional in appearance and with more unique woods.  We settled on this Custom Tenor Ukulele with Mun Ebony and Adirondak Spruce. This Mun Ebony came to the States well over 25 years ago when it might not have been such a rare […]

Koa and Maple Custom Tenor Ukulele

Ok, ok!  Time to get back to the grind.  Here’s a Koa and Maple Custom Tenor Ukulele finished late last year.   I like getting requests for instruments with different combinations of wood.  I’ve used Maple back and sides before with a variety of top woods, but I really like this particular combination–a little bit of Aloha […]

Koa Petroglyph Turtle Tenor Ukulele

Here’s a new custom tenor ukulele–the Koa Petroglyph Turtle Tenor Ukulele. Originally I just wanted the purfling and sound hole rosette in Blue Paua Abalone but, in the middle of the night, I decided to add a styalized Petroglyph Turtle.  The idea was to have a Koa on Koa look.  I already had enough bling and I thought […]

Christmas Koa

Yup, it’s almost that time of the year again, so I’m calling this custom tenor ukulele Christmas Koa. The Christmas Koa custom tenor ukulele is constructed from some pretty nice curly koa with a really rich red-brown color (my photography doesn’t do justice). To accent the wood,  I used some new and very festive Fuschia […]

Custom Chocolate Heart Mango Tenor Ukulele

Hey Ya’ll!  Here’s another Custom Chocolate Heart Mango Tenor Ukulele. This instrument was custom for Sheila who liked the last one that I built for Hale Ukulele San Diego so much that she had to have one of her own.  We made a few changes for her though:  a smaller neck, no Paua Abalone purfling (rosette […]

Black Walnut Koa Custom Tenor Ukulele

This is Fae’s new Black Walnut Koa Custom Tenor Ukulele.  Fae asked for something a little different and I suggested this combination of woods.  I have used this combination of woods before and  found the end result to be very pleasing in both sound and appearance. Unfortunately it is becoming increasingly difficult to find suitable woods for these […]

Dark Koa Tenor Ukulele

This week’s addition is a Dark Koa Tenor Ukulele which was just completed and delivered Thrusday to Hale Ukulele in San Diego.   This is the second and next to last set of this particular look in Koa that I have in stock.  My wife has nicknamed the instrument “the skunk” because of the dark and light […]