Lefty, I am glad you got these posted because they are really cool!       Both the quality of your ukes and check out these photos!  Professional quality white room!

The natural rough edge bridge is beautiful, excellent touch.
Tasteful choice of materials, I like the all-natural look.  Outstanding. 

Hi Lefty,
I'll look for your 'uke at the fair.  I didn't finish mine in time. I'll be working in the old fashioned cabinet shop making chairs so be sure I will ogle your beautiful 'uke.

Talk about six degrees of separation, I have a friend that's a teacher at Palomar!  He teaches ESL.

Hi guys!  Even though this is my first post, I've been lurking (i.e., a daily visitor!) for a year or more.  

I purchased a tenor uke kit from Hana Lima last year, started it over Thanksgiving weekend, and finished it this week.  Thought I'd post some pics of the final product.  

I want to thank Mike and Asa for a great manual that provided such detailed instructions that I rarely had to look for help elsewhere - but when I did, I either found my answer here on the message board, or they were gracious in quickly answering my emails.  You guys are the greatest!

Here are the pics - now that I've made my first post, I imagine I'll be posting more often:

If this is your first Uke, VERY impressive!

Thanks, guys, for your kind words.  This is my first instrument, and I found the process of making it immensely rewarding.  Truly, it was one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done.  I'm really looking forward to the next ones - I've started two more, but they've been put on the back burner while I make some changes to my garage/shop area to better accommodate uke-building.  

Konacat, I hadn't noticed before, but I checked the strings at the nut and I think you're right - a bit uneven.  I'll have to correct that.  I"m still in the process of finding the strings I want to use on it.  Originally I was going to set this up with low-G tuning, but in the process of making the little scallops on the back edge of the bridge I over-did it, and didn't leave enough room on the compensated bridge to allow for the string holes.  So I switched to uncompensated bridge, and have it set up with re-entrant tuning.  I'd still like to try low-G strings on it, though.  Right now I've got it set up with Hilo high tension strings, and I don't particularly like them.  I'd like to try some Aquila's on it.

Anyway, thanks again for the compliments.  I really appreciate them!

Wood_Butcher wrote on Jul 6^th, 2008 at 1:02pm:


Thanks, Mark.  I was a little nervous about the process, but it proved to be very simple.  I got the paua inlay material from Hana Lima.  I know I've seen the instructions elsewhere, but the only place I can find them this AM is on the Stew-Mac website, and it's only a picture.

Shell inlay picture

Here is a brief rundown of the procedure, since it doesn't say much on that web page:  I was using the Hana Lima faux tortoise shell binding (which is actually polyethylene and very easy to work with), so I used Stew-Mac's Weld-On Cement for gluing on the binding.  At the time that I glued on the binding I also glued on the black/white/black accent strips with a strip of the no-stick filler strip in between, just like it shows in the picture.  

That filler strip really works as advertised - after allowing time for the glue to dry, I just popped it right out, which created a perfect channel for the paua strips.  Adding those was really fun - you just slip them in the channel, and as you go around the curves you break off pieces in lengths short enough to make the curve.  most of the time I did that with my fingers, but sometimes I needed a pair of needle nosed pliers for breaking the shorter pieces.  

Anyway, once I had them broken to length and fit in the channel I flowed super glue over it until all the spaces around the shell were filled.  Sanding down that hard shell flush with the soundboard was the toughest part of the whole procedure.  Scraper may work better.