just got delivery of a Martin OX-K, HPL soprano uke

I just opened the box and unzipped the gig bag, I'm glad the neck is a darker color that almost matches the darkness of the Koa-look HPL.

I'll take it to STRUM tonight (6-8p), our regular, weekly song circle a the Kona Kitchen Restaurant, Seattle, and put it through its paces.

will check back tomorrow with more of a 'review' to report my experiences with it

keep uke'in',

PS sorry, I won't be posting pictures, but you can see what they are like - Google 'Martin OXK ukulele pictures' and you'll see the pictures

Nothing like getting a new Uke. Good you get to put it through it's paces so quickly. I bought a Maton Tenor (Australia) not long ago, beautiful instrument. I love it.

Congratulations! I love my OXK. It has a very nice sound. Aside from a slight darkening of the fingerboard, it looks exactly the same as when I bought it three years ago. It becomes my exclusive in-house playing ukulele once cold weather and indoor heating is here. I can play it directly in front of a space heater without much fear.

I do have to lightly wipe down the neck before playing with 000 steel wool as the strips of Stratabond hurt my thumb if I don't take a few swipes with it.

yeah, actadh, I also noticed that the strips that make up the neck, esp behind the first 2 or 3 frets, seem distinguishable, not smoothed out like the rest of the neck. No worries just yet anyway. actually, it permits me to 'grab' the chords 'better' (?)

it played very nicely, although not as loud as my Kala Travel Soprano, but perhaps if I changed the clear strings for my Aurora (nylgut?) rainbow color strings I might get a brighter sound. I actually like a more mellow sound, but because I tend to 'lead' the singing, I find a louder, brasher sound helps me lead the singing

anyway, people were surprised that the uke was HPL, or 'Formica'. They didn't seem 'put off' by that fact at all. Everyone who played it thought it was a 'nice-sounding' uke [whatever that means ].

I'm 'conditioning' it right now with my ToneRite. I know, I know, it's HPL. My thought is, however, that since it is still made of several pieces glued together, conditioning it with the ToneRite, might help to get all the pieces vibrating and resonating more in unison... eventually. Obviously, no intent to molecularly change the wood fibers which is pretty irrelevant in an HPL construct

Even if this attempt at 'conditioning' ends up being merely psychological, that's fine with me

Currently, I'm very happy with the Martin OXK from Reverb.

I know there are pictures online (search Google for 'Martin OXK ukulele pictures'). you'll probably also see links to YouTube videos so you can hear sound samples as well.

keep uke'in',