Tiare Tenor Ukulele

This is Naomi’s Tiare Tenor Ukulele.  I think we should just call it “My Tiare”.  After some deliberation here at the shop,  Naomi picked this wonderful set of Koa Wood for her project. This Koa Wood  is  another set of salvage wood from the big island of Hawaii.  We both really like the color, curl and grain patterns of this wood.  Since I already had experience with this wood (this is the second of four sets total), I  had a good idea of how the wood would work and. ultimately. the sound it might produce.

In addition,  so that Naomi wouldn’t loose her Tiare Tenor Ukulele in a gigantic pile of koa tenor ukuleles,  we added a small “tiare flower” to the finger board.  The tiare flower is made from white  mother-of-pearl with a gold MOP center.   I added some fret markers of white MOP to balance the appearance.

The rest of the Tiare Tenor Ukulele build is pretty standard for me using a collection of exotic woods and materials from around the world:  white/black Maple purfling (top and sides), Oregon Black Walnut burl accent woods, blue Paua Abalone purfling (pictures never show the sparkle well), Honduran Mahogany neck, Amazon Rosewood finger board and bridge, India Rosewood binding, gold frets from Europe and gold Gotoh UPT tuners from Japan.

As expected, the sound of this instrument is well balanced with Koa brights and some good low end base with the help of some GHS flourocarbon low “G” strings.  I just wish I could make it smell as good as Tiare.