Earthtone Cedar and Koa Super Tenor Ukulele

Here is a new super tenor ukulele delivered to Hale Ukulele the week before last.  This year I am planning on building more instruments with traditional tonewood tops.  So here is the Earthtone Cedar and Koa Super Tenor Ukulele — the second instrument I have built so far, using this interesting wood.

This cedar is salvage from Alaska via Alaska Specialty Woods.   I don’t have the full story on the wood yet but I believe that it may come out of peat bogs.  It is well preserved and because the growing season is so short up there the growth rings on the wood are super tight making the wood very stiff, especially for the species.  It’s unusual color is countered by an unbelievably clear and bell-like tap tone. The wood also smells great, but I found it to be a bit difficult to work since it wants to wick-up cements used for binding.  This can change the color a bit around the periphery. I’ll get it worked out though.

I delivered three super tenors to Ric at Hale Ukulele at the same time (earthtone cedar, ancient spruce and all koa) and this instrument had the brightest tonal quality of the three.

These super tenors will all come with some type of inlay like this small Paua Abalone Moon and Palm on the amazon rosewood finger board.  I’m also putting wood rosettes on these instruments and pre-installing Mi-si pickups as well.

So if you are in town and have a few minutes,  stop by Hale Ukulele and check out the Earthtone Cedar and Koa Super Tenor Ukulele while it’s still there.