- Ukulele Body Woods
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It all starts with the wood - ukulele bodies...............
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There is an increasing trend in ukulele making and guitar making to use woods which look spectacular regardless of the sound they produce. I don’t follow it. I evaluate ukulele woods with tests and prototyping before I will use it in my production. These are the woods I use currently.....
Australian Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon)
Just as the original Hawaiian makers were blessed with the extraordinary tonewood Acacia Koa, in Eastern Australia there grows Acacia Melanoxylon or Australian Blackwood, also called Tasmanian Blackwood, as it grows very well in that island state. However, variants of it grow all the way up the east of Australia into the tropical areas. It is a relatively short-lived tree, a legume, which re-colonises the ground after older trees have died and prepares the soil for the dominant forest trees. It has almost identical properties to its Hawaiian cousin, Koa. I use it for almost all my ukulele bodies - top, back and sides. It is a highly regarded tonewood for guitars as it sometimes has wonderful wavy, shimmering, dimpled and otherwise spectacular grain. (Only about 1% of trees show this figure) It also imparts a bright, rich tone when used in guitar back and sides, although I don’t favour it in guitars as much as other woods. I do prefer it to mahogany though. It really comes into its own when used in ukuleles however, when carefully shaved down to the very fine thicknesses I use and braced appropriately it has just the right combination of strength and flexibility to produce the rich full bodied tone I strive for. Straight grained, quartersawn blackwood is very stiff along the grain and produces a bright sound. The curly, figured blackwood has a stonger lower midrange component and a warmer sound. It has a good surface hardness and does not require a thick finish for protection from the various strumming techniques used by players. In fact, it is fine with no finish at all if you want, just a hard wax coating to seal the wood and protect against dirt will do. There is more about finishes under FINISHES.
In short, it looks great, a lot like the best Hawaiian Koa, sounds great, and is a sustainably harvested timber. What more could you want?
Satin Box (Phlebalium squameum)
Another wood I have used, and like very much, is a unique Australian wood called Satin Box (Phebalium squameum). It is creamy yellow colour and has an unusual structure. In the thin sections I use for ukuleles it is quite translucent, passing much more light than spruce of the same thickness. It has a clear “crystalline” sound to it. Ukuleles built from it look a little like the “TV Special” Gibson Les Paul guitars, whose creamy blonde appearance showed up so well on back and white television. Satin Box also has a unique smell. Very pleasant, like a fruity, spicy salad dressing. It is a great ukulele wood. Being a hardwood it needs only a thin lacquer coat.
Jarrah(Eucalyptus marginata)
There are quite a number of early ukuleles I have made from Western Australian Jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata). Jarrah looks great with its rich red -brown colouring and often spectacular figure. The sound of my Jarrah ukes is not as “hot” or rich as my blackwood ones. They sound quite loud with good mid range response and a lot like a high-quality U.S. made Koa ukulele. A little tame to my ear. This is because Jarrah, being a eucalypt, is prone to instability, movement and cracking when made very thin in ukulele bodies, so it has to be used at the thicknesses used in the factory ukes. It is very durable and does not need thick finishes.
Finally, a word about spruce tops. Spruce, be it European or American in all its varieties, (and I have them all) is of course a highly favoured tonewood in most stringed instruments, especially the soundboard or top. Many fine ukulele makers use it and all the big American /European companies with Chinese factories offer it as an option. I simply don’t like it in traditional Hawaiian-style ukuleles. The reason? I think any advantage in volume, dynamic range and tone spruce might offer is lost because the strumming techiniques used in ukulele playing. Spruce lacks surface hardness. A spruce top needs protection with a fairly thick finish or a pickguard of some kind covering a large proportion of the top, all of which dampens the sound anyway. Only when compared with similarly over-lacquered mahogany, plywood or even koa ukuleles of the same factory origin does it show any superiority. Even used carefully and properly graduated spruce does not have as nice a harmonic content as the acacias in ukuleles. I think, however, it does have a place in the building of ukulele precursor instruments like the braguinha or the Canary Islands timple, where penetrating, percussive treble tonality is all-important.
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- Necks, Fingerboards, Bridges etc
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It all starts with the wood - necks, fingerboards, bridges.....
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All my ukulele necks are made from various species of the genus Toona. This mahogany-like wood is called Red Cedar in Australia, but has variants growing all around the Pacific and up into East Asia. It has similar properties to Cedrella spp- Spanish or Cuban Cedar. It is very light, quite soft and this is important for the sound. It is easily strong enough for ukulele necks and is easy for me to carve by hand. All my necks are hand carved.
Fingerboards are made either from ebony or an Australian eucalypt called Wandoo. Both are very hard, strong and durable. Wandoo ages to a rich chocolate brown colour and is available on request on any of my ukulele models. Indian Rosewood is used by many factories for fingerboards however I do not consider it of sufficient strength or hardness for my instruments. Madagascar and Honduras rosewood also make excellent fingerboards but are harder to obtain.
Bridges - Rosewood
Nuts and bridge saddles - Ebony, Bone and mother of pearl are all available options.
Interior braces - Select hard, fine grain spruce.
Interior Blocks and linings - Austalian Bunya.
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Wandoo makes an excellent fingerboard. It is strong, hard, stable and ages from this colour to a dark rosewood brown.
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The ebony I use comes directly from a wood supplier in India who complies strictly with his state and federal government regulations. Supplies are very limited and the wood is frequently unavailable. The Wandoo I use comes from trees cut on private farmland. Eucalyptus wandoo is not at all an endangered species. As my ebony supplies run low I will be using more of it. It can be requested in any instruments.
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- 12 Fret Necks
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12 or 14 fret necks.
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Coming from the Portugese and Spanish guitar building tradition, the initial ukulele makers built their gut-strung soprano ukuleles with 12 fret necks, i.e. the body join is at the 12th fret. As the guitar family evolved, including the machete (braguinha) from which the ukulele body descended, the bodies were designed such that the bridge would sit in the middle of the lower bout, the main working area of the soundboard. For gut, nylon or fluorocarbon strings, this is important. To drive the fundamental monopole mode of vibration of the lower bout these lower tension types of string need the bridge to be in this position. With steel strings it does not matter so much, for a few reasons to do with the internal bracing. Anyway, in ukuleles this mode of vibration gives the fundamental and lower order harmonics, the warmth and fullness of the note. All the other modes in which the soundboard can vibrate are there too of course, and these are controlled by the type and position of internal bracing. With the shift of the bridge up the soundboard towards the hole brought about by using a 14 fret neck, more of the higher harmonics and less of the fundamental mode are produced. The sound is thinner, brighter , and usually quieter. Also, the extra torque the neck produces on the body requires a heavier build, which works against the sound.
This is why in my soprano, concert and tenor ukuleles I have stuck with the 12 fret neck. My solo tenor model has been re-designed to work with a 14 fret neck, but as you can see, the shape is quite different.
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Piccolo Soprano Concert Trad Tenor Solo Tenor Baritone Acacia Bass
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12 12 12 12 14 14 12
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So why did this lengthening of the neck take place? I don’t know, but my guess is that because American flat top steel string guitars started going that way in the 1930s, ukulele designs followed. The same kind of thinking led to the small dreadnought-shaped soprano ukes which have been around since the 1950s. Lengthening the neck worked for the steel string guitar in most respects, giving easier access to the higher notes although many still prefer sound of the 12 fret models. For soprano ukuleles however, with their short scale length, the 12th fret is nearly the end of the road for sustain and good note definition. Classical guitars sometimes stretch it to 20 frets, the equivalent of a 15th fret on a ukulele. So, a 14 fret neck on a soprano with a few extra frets over the body is pretty much a waste of space and wood for the vast majority of players. It also dampens the soundboard. There are of course many players who use the higher frets and this no doubt was what led to the development of the longer scaled concert ukulele in the 1920s.
My solo tenor model has 20 frets and is voiced to sound as good as possible up there. It is only on the longer scale ukes that the additional frets work, so the tenor and the baritone tend to be the ones which have the extra frets. There are tenor-necked soprano bodied ukuleles which give plenty of frets clear of the body and have the bridge in a good place in the lower bout, but to handle the extra tension of the long scale length they have to be quite heavily built. On the other end of the scale, check out the Canary Islands timple. The most common forms have only 7 frets. There is plenty of room for more, but 7 frets do it quite nicely.
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Canary Islands Timple. 7 frets. Quite different to the ukulele, but played in a similar way.They have a bright, delicate sound and are related to the South American Charango.
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All things considered, the ukulele is now a world instrument and is used in many musical genres. It will evolve in may ways. I’m working on evolving it myself, but for classic sweet ukulele tone, I like 12 fret necks.
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- Light Weight
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Why so light?
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When I had to put a new side in an old early 1920’s Kuamalae soprano many years ago, I marvelled at how lightly built it was. It had the wonderful full, loud sound I was finding elusive. It started me on the path ......
A few years of experience has taught me that ukuleles have the volume, the tonal complexity and warmth I like when they are made from koa or blackwood of the right thickness, with carefully shaved and tuned spruce braces. Violinmaking has taught me how robust very thin sides with hand bent solid linings are. Classical guitar making has taught me that an arch in the top below the soundhole enables a thinner, lighter, more responsive top and allows for a lower, lighter bridge. Without this arch I would not be able to make the instrument so light.
All this is only possible because the total tension on a ukulele string set is much lower than on most other instruments. Even with this low tension I reinforce and stabilise the neck block area of the back with an extra brace adjacent to the block, which distributes the torque from the strings to a wider area of the back. These ukuleles may be light and responsive, but they are built to last.
My ukulele bridges are very small. They have a small footprint with bamboo pins linking them through the top. Strings are anchored in the old Hawaiian style with knotted ends in sockets at the rear of the base of the bridge. No tie block, no bridge pins, no extra weight. The bottom of the bridge is curved to fit the top, which makes the whole thing stronger and resists warping.
Another advantage of the lighter build is that the instrument can be held easily in playing position for a long time without a strap. My friend Douglas Tolentino and his band Pa’ahana play 3 long sets, 3 nights a week at the beautiful “House Without A Key” restaurant at the Halekulani Hotel in Waikiki. Doug uses one of my tenor instruments without a strap, without a pickup, playing only near his vocal mic. Simple.....
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- Rope Binding
- Pickups
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If you really must plug it in..........
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A high quality ukulele will cut through most mixes into a microphone. Look at the picture below.
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This is Doug Tolentino and Pa’ahana playing at their regular gig at the Halekulani Hotel in Hawaii. Doug’s Wise Tenor ukulele is so loud it can be played into the vocal mic at a distance and is still right there in the mix with amplifiesd guitar and string bass. Because it is nice and light, he can hold it this way without a strap over a 3 hour show.
Sometimes you really need a pickup system - to drive effects, to play in big lineups with bass and drums on loud stages, for soloing without having to play too hard....... etc. If you want a pickup it is best to have it installed when the instrument is built. The ukulele is built slightly heavier (just a little....) to best accommodate the pickup.
These are the ones I have found to be the best. They can be ordered already installed in the instrument. If you click on the name it will link you to the manufacturer’s website, but don’t forget to come back!
MiSi Acoustic Trio-An L.R.Baggs Element under saddle pickup into a special MiSi endpin preamp. This preamp has loads of gain, has no battery, but runs for over 12 hours off a 1 minute charge courtesy of a super capacitor. It sounds very accurate, is simple to use and has no battery!
L.R.Baggs Five 0 - Also an L.R. Baggs element under saddle pickup with a specailly designed ultra light preamp tuned for ukulele tone. It runs 300 hours off a small disc battery and has the advantage of a volume control in the soundhole.
K&K twin spot - this is a passive system. The two small stick-on transducers are inside the ukulele. It is uncomplicated and sounds good. It is best through a preamp.
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- Tuning
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PEGS etc...
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In recent years, most of my soprano and concert ukuleles have used friction pegs, initially Gotoh UKA, then Grover 4B. The Grovers are very good and I will use them if requested. Lately, however, I have started to use the much more expensive Peghed planetary geared pegs made by Chuck Herin. They look just like ebony wooden friction pegs (from a few feet away anyway), but have a 4:1 planetary gear inside. Ingenious. They are very precise to use, and a 4:1 ratio is about right, especially if you are using alternative tunings and need to change quickly.
Some people prefer guitar-style machine heads on concert and soprano ukuleles.. I will only use them if they are light weight, so as not to make my instruments unbalanced. The ones I prefer are Grover Sta Tite geared tuners, or Gotoh UK12, which are nice and light. Gotoh Stealth tuners are relatively new on the market and they are also very light, but don’t have the look I am after on my traditional looking ukuleles. Also available now are Waverly open geared tuners. Very fine tuners but a little heavy for the smaller instruments and quite expensive.
On Tenor and Baritone I use the Grover Sta Tites or Gotoh UK 12 geared machine heads. The extra tension on the strings and torque on the string post asks for a machine head. I will also use Gotoh UK700 ukulele machines or Waverly tuners on baritones as well, ![]() as they can handle the added weight.
Plenty of factory ukuleles have the sealed gear cast alloy housing tuners. These instruments are heavy enough to handle these heavier tuners. They are not available on my ukuleles.
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Grover 4B
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Peghed planetary 4:1geared pegs.
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They don’t look like much but are very good. Hard to get.
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Waverly ukulele pegs
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- Finishes
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Finishes
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Lacquer For overall durability and acoustic performance I find it very hard to improve on the thin, flexible satin lacquer I use an my ukuleles. A gloss finish is available but requires more coats to avoid polishing through to the wood. This extra build can dampen the sound, inhibiting modes of vibration which bring out the high treble harmonics which is why I don’t use gloss finishes unless requested. I charge extra for it too. It looks nice.
French Polish. I love French polish. I like applying it and love the way it looks and sounds on an instrument. I use Kusmi golden seedlac or U Beaut hard white shellac. This finish is easily scratched, however and is not as durable as lacquer. It adds considerably to the price of a ukulele.
Custom inlay is available as an extra feature. I also have a standard palm tree motif for the headstock available in white or gold mother of pearl.
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