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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.