My First 21″ Baritone Ukulele - Custom Build-Sold
It’s still the year of the Baritone here. This is My First 21″ Baritone Ukulele.
Curly Hawaiian Koa.
The Woods
Body: Does it get any better? This is the sister set of curly, Hawaiian Koa shown on the Curly Koa Curly Maple Tenor Ukulele
Koa match.
Binding: curly, Hawaiian Mango with maple/black purfling accents.
Curly Hawaiian mango binding.
Neck: Honduran Mahogany.
Honduran mahogany neck.
Accent woods: curly, Hawaiian Mango.
Fret Board and Bridge: Ebony species.
The Rest of the Build
Tuners: Gotoh guitar-style open back 15::1.
Gotoh open back tuners.
Amplification: Mi-si passive.
Strings: Oasis Baritone with smooth, brass wound D & G.
Case: Crossrock ABS in bitchin blue.
Crossrock ABS case.
Tuning: DBGD–Hawaiian slack key.
My Comments
Not bad! As said, this is my first attempt at a longer scale baritone. 21″ has been a request by many baritone players who wanted more string tension than the standard 20″ scale. The longer scale does not necessarily equate to a bigger sound though. In order to move the bridge up on the sound board to approximate it’s original position I decided to go 15 frets to the body.
I’ve occasionally used wound D & G strings on previous 20″ builds because I felt that the G needed a bit more tension. The Thomastik-Enfeld cf30/27 have worked well for this purpose. This set of Oasis Baritone strings has a smooth, brass wound D & G and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of sound. I plan to use the same combination on the next 21″ build as well–at least for starters and for comparison. The client plays only slack key and the E tuned down to D sounded pretty damn ono to me.
So there you go. My First 21″ Baritone Ukulele.
