Know anything about bocote ukes?

What kind of soundboard is bocote? Is it like spruce? Got a bocote uke? How's it sound?

I don't have a bocote uke, but the wood is very unlike spruce.

Spruce is kinda soft, spongy, springy, light weight.
Bocote is like.. the opposite of spruce. It's dense, heavy, hard.

Bocote is also called Mexican Rosewood. Hard, warm, not at all like Spruce...

I had a Kala Bocote Tenor until earlier this year. It was amazing. I would compare the sound from that uke with any of the big K brands. The Bocote is a laminate wood though. And the Kala has an arched back that I think helps the sound. Mim has a concert size bocote right now. I'd love to buy it, if it weren't $250.

Bocote grows in Central America where we build. I absolutely love the wood, but there are some severe limitations with it. It's a cousin of Ziricote, and like that wood, has a sort of dry, clean Rosewood sound. But the Rosewoods can be brittle, Ziricote is worse than most of the Rosewoods and Bocote is worse than Ziricote.

It's so bad that in spite of the beautiful tone, I don't think I'd build a solid board instrument with it. If you were to find a plain quartered piece you might be tempted, and the occasional guitars you see built with Bocote tend have very simple grain structure. You'd end up with the same sort of look, and likely the same sort of sound as with Palo Escrito.

The thing is, that's abnormal with Bocote. Usually the grain is very wild, very exotic. Take a look at the photo of the back of one of our Tenor Largos (sides are Carao). That sort of pattern (love it or hate it) is what makes Bocote unique.

So that's the reason you mainly see it used as a laminate. This particular Tenor Largo is built with an old technique dating back to the Romantic Guitars, where the finer instruments had a back with a Cypress lining. So we could get away with Bocote because of that construction.

With the more common modern laminates, it all depends on the woods, glues, and techniques they use to lay things up. In those cases, you need to ask about specific brands, like Kala. They may be good, they may be bad, but the sound should be consistent, and will be different from another factory's result with the same outer skin.