The wood used in this soprano ukulele came from multiple sources. The top board is Douglas fir from my uncle, Gerry VanNess (https://gerritvannessart.com/), as are the big leaf maple (back & sides, face plate, heel cap, bridge inlay, fretboard binding, inlaid fret markers, and strap buttons) and the ebony used for the saddle and nut. Black walnut appears in multiple places (neck, sound hole rosette, fretboard, face plate, bridge, tail stripe, and body binding) and is from my favorite local source, Omaha Wood Co. (https://www.facebook.com/omahawoodco/).
As you probably know, building ukuleles is a hobby of mine; I’m not a professional trying to earn a living from my instruments. Because of that, my projects go in fits & starts. I might work on a uke for parts of several weekends in a row and then not get to it for a month or more. I also haven’t taken the time to make jigs (with a couple of exceptions) to systemize or standardize the building process. Because of this, it’s easy for boo-boos to make their appearance. Some I’m able to hide; others I end up just living with. A professional luthier, if not able to hide a mistake (and they do make mistakes!), would start over. I have decided to preserve the evidence of the “hands of the maker” because of the time I’ve invested in each project and the limited supply of wood I have. This was a long-winded explanation for the reason there are three footprint inlays on the back of the ukulele. When I was building one of my concert ukuleles, I used a turnbuckle with wood blocks on each end to stretch the body into the desired shape and to aid in ensuring proper set of the neck while gluing on the back and top. The turnbuckle and blocks were inside the uke, and I removed them through the sound hole after the glue had dried. I liked how this aided the building process, so I did the same for this uke. The problem is that the blocks I used were sized for the larger concert uke. After gluing the top & back to the sides, I was able to remove the turnbuckle, but the block at the butt end of the uke couldn’t rotate enough to get it forward of the braces on the top and back boards. In other words, the block was stuck. The only way to remove it was to remove the back of the uke. When separating the back from the sides using heat and a knife, the knife I was using ended up cutting through the back. I tried to disguise the damage by inlaying footprints, and then compounded the problem by adding chisel marks when I was removing excess epoxy.
Another example of the hands of the maker can be seen in the shape of the body. Your eyes are not deceiving you; the body is not symmetrical. It’s most noticeable when looking at the bridge position, which appears misplaced. The bridge is accurately and correctly placed with respect to the nut and fretboard but is not a uniform distance from the tail end of the uke. This type of lack of uniformity is not something that concerns me. It’s simply evidence that the sides were bent by hand, and, therefore, are not a perfect mirror image of each other.
The ukulele is numbered 2505-12 on the label.
The components are:
Douglas fir top (2-piece)
Big leaf maple back (2-piece)
Big leaf maple sides (2-piece)
Black walnut body binding
Black walnut neck
Black walnut and big leaf maple face plate
Black walnut fretboard with big leaf maple inlay separating the fret markers (5th, 7th, 10th, and 12th frets)
Big leaf maple fretboard binding with ebony impregnated epoxy fret dots
Black walnut bridge with big leaf maple inlay
Ebony nut and saddle (compensated)
Black walnut tail stripe
Big leaf maple heel cap
Black walnut sound hole rosette
Big leaf maple strap buttons
Douglas fir dust and epoxy headstock logo
Ebony dust and epoxy footprints on the back
Graphtech tune-a-lele tuners
Uke-logic fluorocarbon strings (soft tension, high G, “Sandia” pink carbon)
Tru-Oil finish
Weight: 13.2 oz. (374 g) (with strap buttons)
Nut width: 38 mm
String spacing G to A: 30 mm
Sound sample of Aloha ‘Oe (Queen Liliuokalani) and the intro & outro to Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of Over the Rainbow
