Chad's Red Cedar and Malaysian Blackwood
Tenor
Click on pictures to enlarge.
This ukulele has a Port Orford Cedar top and Malaysian Blackwood back and sides with curly Koa binding.
Port Orford Cedar is actually a species of cypress, but has a cedar-like smell. It grows only in a small area of Oregon and is high demand as a tonewood.
The Malaysian Blackwood is a type of ebony (as opposed to African Blackwood which is a rosewood). Because of the stiffness and the weight of the wood, I made it quite a bit thinner than my normal back and sides.
The koa binding is very curly and looks great as a border between the cedar and the Blackwood.
The Blackwood on the back and sides polished up so shiny that it was actually difficult to take pictures without getting my mirror image in the picture.
The accents are Big Leaf Maple burl. This piece has a lot of interesting patterns, especially the end graft.
The rosette is Malaysian Blackwood with an additional abalone inlay to match the abalone purfling. This is the second time I've done this type of rosette and it really looks nice.
This picture also shows how clean this piece of Port Orford Cedar is. You almost can't see any grain at all.
The strings are a Pepe Romero wound low G string with custom fluorocarbon strings.
The Malaysian Blackwood really has a strong response to bass tones so I increased the thickness on the E and A strings a bit to give them a little more power. I worked out quite well.
The fretboard and bridge are also Malaysian Blackwood.
You would expect an instrument with an ebony body and a cedar top to be quite loud and this uke does not disappoint. The nice thing about it is that even when played loudly, the tone and articulation stay true and don't get muddy at all.
There is a sound sample below.
I really like how the curly koa binding pulls the top and sides together.
The neck is carbon reinforced African Mahogany.
Instead of a black logo, I went with crushed Mother of Pearl this time.
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Check out Chad's sound sample. I think this is before I changed to the thicker E and A strings.
