Super Bearclaw and Koa Tenor Ukulele

Here’s a an example of what I have been making a lot of this year.   There have been a more requests for conventional tonewood sound boards.  This is the super tenor Super Bearclaw and Koa Tenor Ukulele.

If you follow my posts you know that I favor any wood that isn’t quite normal looking–I’d like to call exotic and beautiful. I have straight grain tonewoods but why bother when  I have a Canadian Sitka Spruce top with some really strong, vertical scatch bearclaw figure.  This figure is determined to be a genetic aberration in certain trees.  The vertical scratch pattern is definitely not common.

I received a Honduran neck blank that wasn’t wide enough for a solid neck, so I split it for this instrument and laminated some curly maple and lacewood strips into the center.  Voila!  It’s a little more work but looks really cool–at least in my opinion.

Not fancy.  Blue and green fiber strips were used for the soundhole rosette and purfling and some Australian Mallee burl for accents. I prefer to just showcase these beautiful woods and sound.  The sapwood on this particular set of koa is almost platinum blond–very unusual color.  Striking!

The new owner was kind enough to send me a sound bite.  When you’ve got this kind of sound there’s not much need for a pick-up.

Keep following ‘cus I got more Super Bearclaw and Koa Tenor Ukulele coming!