NUUD - New Used Uke Day

Picked this up of off Craigslist yesterday. All solid, claimed to be Koa by the seller. Supremely light, resonant and has a wonderful chime.
I have a set of Fremont Blackline mediums on the way for it as well as a set of UPT’s.
It came with the HSC and I am almost ashamed of how little I paid for it.
I am having a difficult time finding any amount of information about Ailani Ukuleles online. I discovered an old thread from 2009 here on UU but the Ailani website posted in the thread is no longer active.

Does anyone have any volume of information about Ailani Ukuleles?

Wishes of a good Monday to all,

Steve.

Congrats on the new (to you) uke! It has a lovely shape with the more squared-off upper bout, imho. Is this a soprano? The sound hole also seems larger than what I would expect, but I kinda dig it.

Good luck on the info hunt, but if it sounds and feels as good as it looks, I wouldn't stress to much about it if it is forever a mystery. Especially if you feel like you got an amazing deal for it. I'm sure perfectly good, or even great, builders start and go out of business or retire all the time. I'm just grateful you shared something new and different for us all to drool over! :shaka:

Edit: Of course, as soon as I hit "Reply", I went and did a quick Google search for the brand and found this:
https://sites.google.com/site/ukulelemakers/multi/xx-current-part-time-luthiers-from-hawaii/hawaii-luthiers-17
Bottom most listing on the page, says it was a company started by husband and wife team who were building their own ukuleles to sell in their own storefront. Have since retired or gone out of business. Case in point from above!

Also in that old UU thread you mentioned (here for those interested), I saw that some folks mentioned the koa being used had aged at least 10 years before use, so that's a kind of cool tid bit if accurate. Add on at least another 10 years since being built, and you're on your way to a well-aged solid wood instrument from a Hawaiian builder. Another member also chimed in that those with the "R&L" label were more "player" models and the "Ailani" label (Lenda's middle name) were the more blingy, higher end models.

All that to say, enjoy the rare gem.

Yes Tom, it is a Soprano. I had the same thought of the sound hole myself. But it sounds great.
You may have noticed the wound C string, I found that a bit odd on a Soprano. The Fremont Blacklines will be here in a day or so, excited to see how it sounds with them.

Thanks so much for the response and your time searching out information,

Steve.

Spicysteve said:

Yes Tom, it is a Soprano. I had the same thought of the sound hole myself. But it sounds great.
You may have noticed the wound C string, I found that a bit odd on a Soprano. The Fremont Blacklines will be here in a day or so, excited to see how it sounds with them.

Thanks so much for the response and your time searching out information,

Steve.

Click to expand...

My pleasure. Thanks again for sharing the unusual and awesome find.

I did not notice the wound C, but that does sound unusual (though I'm still no more than a novice in this world). Maybe before you change the strings you can record a sample to compare to the Fremonts, just to see what the logic there might have been. Maybe the sound was too bright with the small all koa build?

I will see if I can produce a decent sound sample through my IPad. I had also wondered if the standard C had been a bit boomy sounding? But I have only experienced that on one of my Tenors and one Baritone. It really looks like to me the rest of the strings are Worth Browns and I sure wouldn’t expect a Worth Brown C to be boomy on a Soprano.

Thanks again and have an enjoyable day,

Steve.

For those who aren't familiar with it, there's the "Wayback Machine" for historical webpages. (web dot archive dot org)
They have some of the Ailani website saved from 2008 and 2009. Unfortunately, they don't have any of the pictures.

Here's some information from the old website:

R & L Ukulele offers very deep & mellow sound, whereas its sister company, Ailani, offers bright & sweet sound.

Each Ukulele is individually handcrafted using the finest Hawaiian Koa and Mango wood. For ukulele making, All our wood has been air-dried and aged for at least 10 years, which results in great sounding Ukelele. Large sound-hole and arched back design on our ukeleles help project better sound.

Ukuleles by R & L, also offers Ailani Hawaiian ukuleles engraved with artistic dolphins, hula girls, pineapples, and turtle designs.

We make our ukes the traditional early 1900 style of making, which involves traditional 11-step, sand & finish hand-rub oil method. This is a very tedious process that requires many layers of sanding.

MADE IN Honolulu HAWAII

I saw the ad for this uke on Craigslist too. I did a bit of research on Ailani ukuleles, but in the end, decided not to contact the seller since I don't play soprano enough to justify the purchase. Glad to hear you like it, Steve. Nice to know it's staying in the Willamette Valley.
Jan D