Curly Koa, Curly Koa, Curly Koa

Richard just picked up this beautiful Curly Koa tenor ukulele yesterday.  I love the look of this set of curly koa wood because it has just about everything I like–wavy curls throughout, good color, wavy grain, sap-wood and spalt.  Since the set is slightly rift sawn you don’t see that straight, stacked curly but this, in my opinion, only adds to the beauty of this wood.  This is my favorite look in curly Koa

This is another set of old growth salvage curly koa from the Big Island of Hawaii that I was fortunate to obtained from Allied Lutherie.  

Since the focus is on the wood,  there is no bling with the exception of a dark chocolate curly koa for binding and the Vanuatu Maidou Burl for the the accent woods and black/white purfling.

The fret board and bridge are Macassar ebony and the tuners are Gotoh planetary.  I’m using a custom set of GHS flourocarbon strings using the low “G” from Sarah Maisel’s custom GHS set.

Richard also requested a solid Koa neck and fortunately I was able to comply with some really old billets of koa that I have been keeping for just this purpose.  It will be a sad day when I do not have any more of this precious wood left.  Surprisingly, this instrument was very light and not head heavy.

I really don’t have a lot else to add to this post.  Every piece of this salvage wood has been different and each instrument has been a surprise.  I honestly didn’t expect this set of curly koa to be as striking as it is.  And, the sound– oh yes, sooo nahenahe.   I think Richard is one lucky guy!