Month: April 2020

Wow! This spectacular mandolin is now at home in Georgia. Check out that inlay – abalone/mother-of-pearl cardinal & dogwood flowers on the peghead, fingerboard, and finger-rest. It’s got a Sitka spruce top, curly English sycamore sides & back, ivoroid binding, Waverly tuners, ebony fingerboard/overlay/bridge/finger-rest, as well as a nitrocellulose lacquer over a hand-rubbed sunburst finish.

Back in 1971, David saved some chunks of this curly maple from a friend’s burn pile in Olympia, Washington & had been waiting for the right instrument to cut it up. Turns out it’s perfectly sized for a baritone ukulele! This one was for a friend who lost her Dart baritone uke in a structure fire towards the end of 2019.

In addition to the curly western maple top/back/sides, this instrument has a western maple neck, rosewood fingerboard/binding/bridge/peghead overlay, Waverly tuners, hand-cut abalone four-leaf clover peghead & fingerboard inlay, mother-of-pearl side dots, bone nut & saddle, and a K&K pickup.

A customer in Florida who owns one of David’s koa concert ukuleles recently ordered a fun custom instrument: a six-string tenor ukulele, with double-strung first & third courses (high to low: AA E Cc G, where the double A is tuned in unison and the double C is tuned to an octave).

We built two of these beauties. Both have solid koa top/back/sides & a black acacia neck, Waverly tuners, bone nut & saddle, abalone fingerboard markers, mother-of-pearl side dots, polyurethane matte finish, and fluorocarbon strings. The custom ordered one has an ebony fingerboard/bridge & an abalone daisy peghead inlay, and the second one has rosewood & an old-timey abalone vine peghead inlay.

These instruments have big presence & projection, with a prominent chorus effect from the doubled strings – perfect for a ukulele player looking for a fuller ukulele sound to keep up with a band, or to add another element to their solo playing.