Today I put new strings on my favorite tenor, an East Indian Rosewood uke with a Redwood top. I had been using the excellent Southcoast Medium Gauge Linear strings with Wound Basses (ML-WB). but Southcoast announced an improvement that they call "Heavy Medium Gauge Linear w/Wound Basses". I bought three sets a few weeks ago but had not tried until today.
Oh my, what an improvement! Perhaps my old strings had been on the uke too long, but I still thought they were sounding great, until I heard this new set. My tenor sounds 15 or 20 % larger. More volume, better balance, marvelous clarity, wonderful rich tone. If you are a tenor player, and like low G, linear tuning, I heartily recomend that you give these strings a try. I am thrilled with them.
Oh my, what an improvement! Perhaps my old strings had been on the uke too long, but I still thought they were sounding great, until I heard this new set. My tenor sounds 15 or 20 % larger. More volume, better balance, marvelous clarity, wonderful rich tone. If you are a tenor player, and like low G, linear tuning, I heartily recomend that you give these strings a try. I am thrilled with them.
Today I got a start on my next four instruments. They will all be tenors, and they will each have a Honduran Mahogany neck. Here are the blanks for six necks. Once you are making them, ya might as well make some extras. This wood is guitar length so I will have some waste, that is a pity because each piece of this lovely wood cost $30.00. Too bad to waste the wood, and the money- but the luthiers world is centered on guitars and not ukuleles.
The first task is to plot out the cut on each piece with the acrylic template. Each piece will be cut into four pieces and glued together to make a neck. They are numbered because if you mate pieces from the same board carefully it is almost impossible to find the glue joint.
I have sawn them off to the usable length in preparation for sanding each side smooth on the thickness sander. If the pieces to be glued together are perfectly smooth the invisible glue joint is more likely to happen. The left over pieces stacked in the back must have some use. Some of it I can saw up for butt blocks, The wood is strong, light and stable, the attributes that make it excellent for necks. I got the long pieces sanded smooth, Next I will take them to the bandsaw to cut into the individual pieces to glue up into necks.
