Ancient Black and White Ebony Ukulele - Custom Build-Sold
I wasn’t quite sure how to name this one so I am using the highlights as the title. This is the Ancient Black and White Ebony Ukulele.
The Highlights
The Soundboard is another piece of the Alaskan Ancient Spruce. About 3000 years old or so and probably one of the most distressed in appearance that I have had possession of yet. It’s really hard to tell exactly what it’s going to look like until sanding to 800gt and adding sealer. It’s definitely a love-hate relationship. I added black mother-of-pearl for the purfling accents.
A very distressed Ancient Spruce sound board.
The Back and Sides are Asian Black and White Ebony. Pretty black and not really white but very unique and rarely used as an ukulele wood.
Asian Black and White Ebony back and sides.
The Neck is Asian Spalted Tamarind. I selected this wood for the neck primarily because the coloration was almost a perfect match with the “whites” of the ebony with black spalt lines to match the ebony.
Spalted Tamarind is a perfect color match to the “white” ebony.
The Binding is curly Hawaiian Koa. Oh, why not!
Curly Koa binding.
The Fret Board and Bridge are also Black and White Ebony. I had a few offcuts from the back and side sets and thought that they had dimensions that would just barely make these parts. I was correct with the finger board but not so on the bridge which I had to 3-ply laminate to make thick enough. Pretty darn cool though.
The Rest of the Build
The Headstock facing is Black and White Ebony.
Black and White Ebony face with Gotoh guitar-style tuners.
The Accent Wood is Asian Syndora Burl.
The Tuners are Gotoh 15:1 guitar-style. I’m experimenting with some modifications to the current headstock design and decided that the guitar-style tuners might be a better match with this more narrow and longer tuning head stock.
The Strings are Pepe Romero with wound low “G”. These have been my standard for awhile now.
The Case is a Crossrock Fiberglass in white.
Well, there you go! I know, Ancient is used as an adjective in the title Ancient Black and White Ebony Ukulele. We just won’t tell my college composition professor.
