Thought you might enjoy a few more pictures of the Guitar Festival
Row after row of beautiful instruments.
Fine craftsmanship is alive and well in the Luthiers world.
Now that is quilt maple ! ! !
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I like to mix a martini and examine the results of the days work. This was last nights inspection  The French Polish is beginning to bring out the beauty of the spalted Maple on Timark's tenor.  I have reinforced this rather soft but beautiful back by sandwiching to it a thin layer of mahogany veneer.  These "lightning bolt" sides are much harder and did not need additional support.  Tonight I had the great pleasure of playing these two just strung up tenors built for Andreas in Kiel and Klaus in Hamburg. I love both of them. Tomorrow they will get their pickups installed and they will be ready to ship to Germany.  Luthiers from across the country brought their beautiful guitars to show and sell  Hundreds of beautiful instruments and a few really unusual ones.  When sawing a walnut log this luthier found it full of bullet holes. He left the holes and used slices of the bullets for fret markers. He says it sounds just fine.  How's this for detail work. Thin slices of various woods glued onto a solid spruce back, Must have taken days to do it, One of the more unusual guitars.  Very few ukuleles were shown but this was surely one of the most unusual instruments of either kind. I guess this is a ukulele. A fancy taro patch perhaps?  And then there was the bazaar among the beautiful. This luthier must have found a sheep skeleton in the desert. This one was not for sale. The Festival continues in the quaint village of LaConner through Sunday the 15th. Well worth a visit. Baritone Kasha design is a little more complex than that for a tenor.  This Bari will have a lovely East Indian Rosewood back. Wild Wood!  And a rich sounding NYC water tank Redwood soundboard  Here is the spalted Maple back being installed on Timark's tenor. This wild stuff is wood from the old Fountain District Maple in Bellingham.  The Bellingham Ukulele Group B.U.G. is resuming its monthly jams after a two year Covid closure  The jams will be held the first Saturday of every month beginning June 4, 2022 in the basement community room of St. James Presbyterian Church 910 14th Street in Bellingham 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm BRING YOUR UKE AND JOIN THE FUN EVERYONE IS WELCOME Beginners welcome Proof of vaccination required (mask optional) $5.00 donation appreciated bring your music stand and the yellow Daily Ukulele Steve McMinn's investment in the future, A figured Maple farm.  This remarkable man, the owner and founder of Pacific Rim Tonewood believes that the rare and beautiful figure that occurs in less than ten percent of Big Leaf Maple trees is genetic. On this large property in the Skagit Valley he has taken cuttings from the stumps of maple trees that had outstanding figure, fiddleback or quilt, and propagates them on his new land. It will be twenty years before success or failure will be evident, and perhaps 30 years before a cash crop can be harvested. Now that is faith in your ideas and in the future.  Rick and I visited the farm today, This is where the cuttings are first planted, the Greenhouse  It is hoped that these cuttings will grow in thirty years into magnificent Big Leaf Maple trees filled with beautiful fiddleback grain or quilt pattern as their very valuable parents were. Will these be the tonewoods for the guitars and ukuleles of the 2050 s and beyond.  Beside the greenhouse is the equipment building with office on the 2nd floor. The manager's home can just be seen in the background,  Manuel Hernandez is the nan in charge of this vision and by the looks of things the thousands of Maple trees on the farm are in capable hands. Here he shows us a cutting two years in the pot. We of course visited Pacific Rim Tonewood a little further up the road to pick up some of their marvelous wood for future ukuleles. I will post a few pieces of the treasures we came home with on a future blog.
What a great morning we had. And I must ship it next week, It will soon be in Finland  It is one of the loveliest ukes I have built and I hate to see it go.  Its Western Red Cedar soundboard gives it marvelous rich sound and great beauty and the European Birch body provides wood grain beauty second to none.  I am hoping to get a bit more of this incredible European Birch from Finland. If I do I think I will build a uke just like this for myself. I have been playing it for several weeks, I will miss it   Jim has chosen this wild and wonderful East Indian Rosewood for the back and sides of his Baritone.  Not as wild but no less wonderful is the Black Cherry of Doug's Concert  Or the amazing fine grain of his Western Red Cedar soundboard. DON'T YOU JUST LOVE THE WONDER OF WOOD?
Tomorrow we will begin a tenor for Timark. He has chosen wood from the old Big Leaf Maple that the city removed from the Fountain District several years ago. The tree was ill and heavily spalted. We were able to salvage enough wood for several ukes. Timark was given his choice of these pieces for back and sides.  His choice was number 3.  Here are the sides, Again he chose #3.  His uke will have a Sitka Spruce soundboard much like this "bear claw" top and a back and sides of the spalted Maple like on this tenor that my apprentice Rick is building for himself.
 If you like wild wood you might make Rick an offer. He might be willing to sell it.
I had cause to remove a pickup from one uke and install it in another-but what to do about the gaping hole left in the vacated uke. I turned to the wood lathe.  I simply turned a strap button with a large base the exact diameter of the hole in the ukulele.  Now to put the pickup in a new ukulele, first a hole must be drilled through the base block. This is done with a step drill. 
 And now the transfer is complete.  Meanwhile Milan's tenor has received its back and it is time to get out the routers  We first trim the edges, and then cut the binding grooves  and finally the channel for the end piece
Meanwhile Rick is putting the final applications of French Polish on Klaus's Cuban mahogany tenor  |
