Steve’s Curly Koa Tenor Ukulele

Steve’s got curl. No, not his hair, but his new Curly Koa Tenor Ukulele. Steve picked out this spectacular set of koa from my stash of salvage wood from the big island of Hawaii. The final product was slightly more than I anticipated.

As with most woods, Koa offers a huge range of variables: color, grain pattern, density and curl or the lack thereof. This particular set of Curly Koa really appeals to me because of its unique quilty-curly look. Most Koa has good chatoyance and with curly koa that effect can be enhanced substantially–one of the main reasons that curly koa is so desired and also so difficult to obtain. How lucky can I be!

I found photographing this particular culy koa difficult because of the rapidly changing appearance of the wood from just about every angle.

Embellishments are kept to a minimum in order to focus on the wood. The binding is India Rosewood with black/white maple purfling. The sound hole rosette is Paua Abalone. The neck is Honduran Mahogany with internal carbon fiber truss rod and the accent wood is Oregon Black Walnut Burl. The bridge and finger board are African Ebony. The strings are GHS flourocarbon, low ‘G”. Even though the strings were not fully set when I delivered this instrument to Steve yesterday, the instrument already exhibited a bold, classic koa sound.