Maple and Mappa Burl Tenor Ukulele - Custom Build-Sold
Off to the races 2021. Here is the first of Four new ukuleles completed this year, the Maple and Mappa Burl Tenor Ukulele.
100 year old Pier Piling Fir sound board.
All the instruments have the 100 year old Pier Piling Douglas Fir for sound boards. Hopefully you won’t find this boring?
Quilty and curly Ambrosia Maple back and sides.
The back and sides are made from some of my very blond, rift curl, Ambrosia Maple. Here the focus is not so much on the spalted areas but rather the unusual quilty, curly curl. This is definitely not your mamma’s average maple wood.
Mappa burl neck with curly koa laminate.
Oooo! The Neck. New for this year is Mappa Burl for necks. This wood from Tropical Hardwoods in Carlsbad is not wide enough for a solid neck so I have to laminate a stringer of sorts to obtain minimum width. Now, I can see problems using burl wood for the neck but it is so trick looking that I have to do it. Ya gotta fill the burly areas a few times to get them solid. There’s also numerous small wood fractures that need a bit of glue. Super light and with the stringer and my massive carbon fiber truss rod, I’m not at all concerned about twisting and bending. I couldn’t keep my hands or eyes off this one.
Curly Koa binding with blue/black fiber accents.
Also new for 2021 are custom exotic wood bindings. My standard is still India Rosewood but I have mastered, I think, the lamination process to add purfling. This instrument sports curly Koa to match the back strip and the laminate strip in the neck. Go curly or go home!
Ambrosia Maple head stock laminate.
The head stock face laminate is a piece of the Ambrosia Maple which I had to stabilize with a little colored epoxy. Terrible picture!
Not shown but added to the build are Munn Ebony finger board and bridge with cultured Opal fret markers. Don’t ask, because I’m not sure that I’ll be doing that again. Tough material to work with and definitely needs more experimentation before I can add it to the armory.
Curly Koa backstrap.
That’s it! Three more unique Pier Piling ukes to come after this Maple and Mappa Burl Tenor Ukulele.
