ON YESTERDAY'S BLOG I promised to show you some of the wood that I bought from Notable Woods on Lopez Island. today I will show you the new back and side sets that were generated either through purchase or because Bruce Creps sawed wood for me. I will share with you what I am considering for tonewood with each of these sets. Kind of fun to preplan these future ukes. Please send me your opinions as to which tonewood you would use.
This is Honduran Rosewood. It is considered by some to be the equal to the rare and classic Brazilian Rosewood. It is very dense and hard, takes a lovely finish and heretofore one of my favorite woods for fretboards. I bought the wood from Targo Woods in Bellingham who imported a lot of it twenty years ago and has been hoarding it ev er since. It tap tones with a brilliant high pitched ring. I bought a tough looking board with lots of cracks and splits that I have been able to cut lots of fretboard size pieces from but I could only find two uke sets in it. I am excited to build a uke of this precious wood as it reputation is stellar. I think I would use Cedar for the top, but maybe this bright and perhaps precise sounding wood would do better with spruce. What do you think?
I bought three sets of Claro Walnut from Bruce. This lovely wood has exciting figure. Not tight fiddleback but kind of a wild and crazy vertical figure that I liked better than the tight fiddleback. It has delicious color variations running with the grain. Bruce tells me that this is indeed a Black Walnut that because of the exceptional conditions in the Williamete valley of Oregon gets this great character. I have lots of good walnut grown here but it is just plain walnut, This stuff is going to be beautiful when finished. And Walnut makes a great sounding uke. I will be tempted to use some of my new Redwood scrounged from the house remodel of a friend, perfectly quartersawn and beautiful tight grain. I might also think that the contrast of Englemann spruce might be fun to use on one of these sets., and then perhaps a top of my newly sawn Pacific Yew might hold promise. Ah! the decisions will keep me pondering for months.
This is rather plain A grade koa. Even this ordinary stuff is pretty pricey, but I did not select it to save money. I have come to the conclusion that the prettiest ukuleles that I have built are not the fancy super figured koa, or maple ukes, pretty as they are. No I have decided that my "blondes" with their plain koa backs and sides, Englemann Spruce tops and Alaska Cedar necks all set off with a binding of highly figured Australian Blackwood, and a fretboard of Honduran Rosewood are absolutely the best looking. I love their contrasts of color, the browns of the koa and the almost ivory white of the tops and necks. Simple , clean, no bling, just classic good looks.
And so I passed on some amazing Mastergrade Koa and specifically bought these four sets to create four more "Blondes" in the future. I just Love the look. And they sound great too. My "Blonde" #38 has become my favorite. I am not going to sell her cuz I play her every day.
And so I passed on some amazing Mastergrade Koa and specifically bought these four sets to create four more "Blondes" in the future. I just Love the look. And they sound great too. My "Blonde" #38 has become my favorite. I am not going to sell her cuz I play her every day.
Now here is some wild wood. It is called Zebra Wood and it is pretty well named. Very dark and prominent stripes. I had Bruce saw a couple of pieces up for me, enough for two ukes. It is really exotic stuff and I am not sure if it frightens me off or not. I have heard that it makes good sounding ukes and I will probably make an experimental tenor one of these days. Maybe this one would like a top of Pacific Yew or Juniper, Then it would be a truly exotic experiment. What do you think, should ukes be this showy? It is fascinating wood. I probably won't be able to resist making one.