Yesterday I told you I was through making custom ukes but had two to finish. Today I heard from one of those clients who had just changed his mind and decided to change from a cedar top to a top of the redwood that I had salvaged from a friends bathroom remodel. Well, that demonstrates the complexities of dealing with Custom customers, but in this case I am delighted because I have never made a redwood topped uke, and this is beautiful wood. I am excited to make the change even though I had already made the cedar top and installed the rosette in it. There will be another tenor soon that needs that cedar top. I guess it is the Yin and Yang of building ukes, anyhow here is the redwood I have chosen. It will be a two piece bookmatched top. The wood is perfectly quarter sawn, incredibly fine grain in the center widening a bit at the edges. There is a little bit of color change which should make for an interesting visual effect. It has a tap tone with a high ring. I think this will be a fine sounding uke when that high ring is tempered by the warm tones of the Koa sides and back. This will be a fun uke to build, Here is a picture of the selected redwood and the spalted maple rosette that I recently made. Sure glad I made four of them.
