Louise's Bear Claw Spruce and Primavera
Tenor
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I am calling this Ukulele the Canadian Blonde because it went to a friend's mother who lives in Canada. I think the blonde is self explanatory.
The soundboard on this ukulele is Bearclaw Sika spruce. Bearclaw is a rare genetic trait that causes the wood to appear to have large irregular "claw marks" running through it. It doesn't affect the strength of the wood at all.
The back and sides of this uke are Primavera (aka White Mahogany). This wood comes from Mexico and I was lucky to get a piece that has some nice curl to it. I have no idea why they call it white mahogany. There is nothing about this wood that reminds me of mahogany.
The primavera is very dense and hard but it almost has a waxy feel to it with almost no pores.
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The combination of the spruce top and the hard primavera back gives this ukulele a very articulate sound with the individual notes coming through very clearly.
Binding is Koa that matches the browns in the Primavera quite well. Fingerboard and bridge are a light colored East Indian rosewood.
The primavera was a little tricky to bend, it wanted to split along some of the curl marks, but otherwise it was really nice to work with.
The accent woods are a mallee burl. The neck is Port Orford Cedar (actually a cypress) with a carbon bar for reinforcement.
I tried something new for me this time. I wanted to do some fancier purfling, but the client's favorite color is white (I know, not technically a color), so I used some crushed Mother of Pearl for the rosette and the purfling. It was a little easier than trying to break the cut strips into a channel.