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 in it instead.  Not only is this wood very curly but super lite with very low density.  We used this particular Red Cedar top because of its beautiful tap tone as compared with other sets of top woods and not specifically for its appearance.  We invisioned a super lite and light weight tenor uke.

In addition,  there was a request for some type of flower inlay on the head stock.  We settled on the Dusky Rose motif.  I was just able to squeeze the Dusky Rose inlay onto the ukulele head stock since it was originally cut for a guitar.  I have to give credit to Luthiers Supply for providing this inlay.  I’m not proud,  I just don’t like spending the time to create these inlays myself; and,  they do such wonderful work.  I had to stagger the Gotoh planetary tuners a bit to accomodate the inlay but that has been done many times before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paua abalone purfling was requested and I also added the same to the back strip. Honduran Mahogany was used for the neck and the accent wood is a dark South American Rosewood.  There is a small pearl inlay on the neck heal as well.   We also added Mi-Si amplification.  The binding is curly Hawaiian Koa.

 

The tone of The Dusky Rose Tenor Ukulele was really a pleasant surprise–clear and almost bell-like and super easy to play.  That was my opinion. The new owner writes (without my prompts):  “This ukulele is really amazing.  Can’t stop playing it–it’s addictive.  I love the sound and it plays like a dream.  Sweet, sweet clear voice and beautifully balanced”.   Seems like we came to the same conclusion.  Hmmmm, maybe a curly redwood top next time???