Suzie ordered a baritone koa ukulele. Nothing fancy she said, no pick-up, no glitz. OK, I put strings on this instrument this weekend and, although I have not finished final adjustment, I have totally fallen in love with this instrument. Here I have used a 4A curly koa with East India Rosewood binding. The neck […]
I just finished this Black Limba ukulele. It’s a tenor, by the way. Haven’t made one from this wood in awhile since I have not had a reliable source for wood. This wood has a really pleasant tap tone and I especially like the varied appearances–absolutely no two instruments look the same. Most of […]
Got this Claro Black Walnut from my good friends at Gilmer Woods in Oregon. I’ve topped this uke with a 60+ year old Sitka Spruce that was rescued from the Gibson factory. I left the age stain down the middle just to give it some credibility. The binding is Hawaiian Koa, the neck is Oregon […]
If you have been to the website, you might be asking yourself what is a carbon fiber tone bar. In short it is a piece of pultruded carbon fiber bar that I have inlayed into the neck. Honestly, this stuff is freaking stiff. There really isn’t that much tension on an ukulele neck, so I […]
I just purchased some Black Limba lumber and here are a few pictures of book matches from that piece. Shhhhh! It’s a secret so don’t tell anyone– this wood duplicates Koa and Black walnut in density and tonal quality. The pattern of the wood varies substantially as you can see. All of these pieces […]
Being a sucker for any new and different wood, I couldn’t resist this recent offering from Luthier’s Mercantile. It is called Tigrillo. I don’t know a whole lot more about the wood other than LMI reports that it is from Peru and is responsibly harvested and maintained. The wood has a vertical tiger-like stripe and […]
I’m sure every luthier has a certain time in the build process that he enjoys the most. For me, this would be after the instrument body comes out of the mold and at the first application of sealer. If I could just quit at this moment it would be perfect. It is at this […]
Hey You all! Nothing new but reworking old ideas. This under-the-bridge string knot I copied from Nahenahe Ukulele of Maui over 20 years ago. Don’t let anybody tell you it’s something new and different. I see that a lot of custom builders are starting to use this technique for stringing newer instruments. There are […]
As in Baritone, that is. Uncle Bob has been eyeing this Oregon Bastogne Black Walnut for most of a year now. He finally pulled the trigger, but wanted a baritone instead of the usual tenor. He wanted the instrument to be straight-forward without a lot of bling, so we didn’t do a back strip and […]
This tenor ukulele was purchased by Olukai (www.olukai.com) as part of it’s contribution for this year’s Surf Industry Manufacturers Association annual Waterman”s Ball (www.sima.com)l silent auction. I was pleased to collaborate with ocean artist Wade Koniakowsky (www.koniakowsky.com) this year to provide a tenor ukulele showcasing our art. This ukulele is fabricated from premium curly Tasmanian […]
