“Pauline has been a close companion for years. She has accompanied me far and wide, and provided countless hours of musical fulfillment.”

“OK, dad, enough with the poetry – get on with it…”

“Right, sorry…”

This is a tenor ukulele with cutaway in cedar/walnut, which is a tried and trusted wood combination in guitar making. Years ago, when I began building ukuleles, the use of softwood tops was not common or readily accepted. People seemed to think that koa and mahogany were the only “real” ukulele woods, and if you wanted to try something different, then the uke still had to have the back, sides and top out of the same wood… 

I was, and still am, convinced that cedar and spruce offed enormous potential. So I ignored the feedback –“ukuleles are different, they’re not supposed to be miniature guitars, never change a winning system, copy the masters, learn from the masters or you will never learn to build real ukuleles…” – and went my own way.

And here are the details:

• Top: western red cedar
• Back and sides: black walnut
• Neck: alder
• Head plate: walnut and flamed maple with MOP dots
• Fretboard and bridge: rosewood (IRW) with MOP dots, 16″ radius
• Rosette and tail graft: flamed maple
• Binding: ivoroid