Two summers ago the girls and I went to Hawaii for a family reunion. I had a little time on my hands so I thought I would get  around to some of the Uke shops and check things out. Probably one of the most impressive shops on the island is Pua Pua, http://ukulele.pua2.com/ and its right down town Waikiki in the Pacific Beach Hotel.  It’s a small little shop but totally packed with ukes! Wall to wall ukes. I met the manager there, Tyler Gilman. A really super nice guy and a super great player . He gave me a couple of books he thought  would be of interest interested to me. They chronicled the Tony Ku Collection. One book showed his uke collection and the other his Hawaiian style guitars. My understanding is that this collection is no longer together so it is so cool that they chronicled his collection because it was  truly impressive. I was immediately wowed by  the vintage pieces he had by Santos, Diaz and of course Nunes. The inventors of the Ukulele. These ukes are so rare you never get to see them. They are mostly all in collections. This was the first time I had ever seen a “Radio Tenor” model built by Leonardo Nunes. Before that I had never even heard of one.It was such a beautiful and cool uke I really had to make a reproduction of it. In my research of this uke  I eventually met Jeff Turner, a collector, who has several really fine examples of them in his collection. He told me that of the “Radio Tenors” He only nows of maybe 20 of them. They are that rare!  Jeff was a wealth of information, and very  encouraging about my project. He gave me drawings and measurements from the original instruments he owns. Needless to say I couldn’t have done it with out his help.

I building the Radio Tenor the first thing I decided to do was to use original construction methods.That meant using the “Spanish style” of construction which historically was how all the ukes from the islands were built. In this style of construction the neck and body are built together as one and not separate pieces. All ukes from the main land were made with the body and neck separate. The majority of people who build instruments these days build with the separate body and neck construction method so building in the “Spanish style” was  a bit of a learning curve for me.  Switching over required making some new jigs and molds as well as a bit of recalculating. The rest of it was pretty straightforward. I made the rope bindings from Mahogany and Holly. Everything else was Koa. I decided to French Polish it for a finish instead of Lacquer. I wanted to give it that lovely patina that those old ukes have. Surprisingly the most frustrating, and most expensive!, thing in this project was getting the decal  and badge made. First I had to get someone to recreate the decal based off of a photo. Then there was finding some one to make the decal. The first company I contacted gave me a quote of $1,600.00! It took me about six months to finally find someone to make me a decal at a somewhat reasonable price. The badge wasn’t too bad. Its not a real acid etched badge but I think its acceptable.

I am traveling to Hawaii next week to participate in the 9^th Annual Ukulele Guild of Hawaii Exhibition and I will bring my “Radio Tenors” to show. I think that sounds very fitting.

Its hard to believe that it’s the end of the summer and looking on to fall. The last six months have been incredibly hectic and it never seems like there is enough time to document and post  things up here on the web site but I am going to make more of an effort to do that as we have had some really interesting things come in for restoration as well as some fun ” builds” .

We finished this cut away tenor this last spring. Brazilian Rosewood back and sides, Lutz Spruce top, curly koa bindings. Abalone top and soundhole Martin 5K inlays.

My customer, Quico, who has a love for the work of the great 19th century Italian guitar builder Louis Panormo, asked me if I could build him a 5 string tenor uke that had the  look of a Panormo guitar. Always being up for something challenging, and interesting as well, ( I am also a great fan of romantic period guitars) I talked to my friend John Doan (pictured below)  whose circa 1810 Panormo I had in my shop at one time. I asked Him if I could borrow it for a bit of poking and prodding.He let me measure it and take lots of photos.

Quico also wanted to have installed Ruck style sound ports. The back and sides are Brazilian rosewood and the top is red spruce. I used Mastodon for the nut and saddle and the bridge pins are vintage ones I got somewhere along the road. They just seemed to fit (no pun intended).The bindings and rosette are super curly Cuban Mahogany. This uke has a really amazing sound.It doesnt sound like your typical uke. It got volume  but has a very balanced sweet tone with exceptional highs that dont sound clipped but have some sustain. A very fun project. Quico suggested that I might expand the idea to make a Terz guitar. It’s a thought. More photos click here.