Jonah Kumalae reprised

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Bradford

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The manager of Thiel's Music in Astoria gave me his 1920 Jonah Kumalae soprano to examine and asked if I could build something similar. Here is the result. Not an exact copy, but I kept the look and feel as much as was practical, including PegHed tuners and a french polish finish. It weighs all of 8.8 oz. and sounds much like the original. Brad
 

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Bradford said:
The manager of Thiel's Music in Astoria gave me his 1920 Jonah Kumalae soprano to examine and asked if I could build something similar. Here is the result. Not an exact copy, but I kept the look and feel as much as was practical, including PegHed tuners and a french polish finish. It weighs all of 8.8 oz. and sounds much like the original. Brad
Click to expand...

I bet it sings just like the lovely little bird it is.
 
That really looks great. I'm glad you strayed from the original and book matched. So how does an original Kumalae sound??
 
The one I took the measurements from was very loud and rich sounding. It was a mess, it had been repaired over and over, but it still was an incredible sounding uke. Jonah Kumalae ukes are often described as having almost paper thin tops, back and sides.

Brad
 
Mine has an incredible rich and loud sound too. My actual first building project is inspired from that uke. You're right when you're saying it's paper thin, and I think that's one of the key to their sound. Other features one mine are french polish, lots of dome on the back, light and basic bracing, no bridge plate, no soundhole plate, solid linings (not kerfed).

kumalae1.jpg


kumalae2.jpg
 
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Brad you would do Jonah Kumalae proud, your 'ukulele is beautiful. I love my little Kumalae, she sings like bird, and is as light as a feather, a joy to play.
 
Weight on mine is 7.6 oz. As many of these vintage paper thin koa ukes it had some crack issues that I've had to fix. Maybe a bridge plate would have avoided that. As my current project is very similar to yours, I'd be very interested in having a few more details on yours : how thick is the top ? How is the internal structure ?
 
Thanks guys for the additional info. The Kumalae I examined did have a bridge plate, it may have been added during one of the many repairs. Anyway I put one in mine as well as some reinforcement under the rosette. Initial thicknesses of top, sides and back was 1.7 mm. Before final sanding. There are two braces on the top and one deeply arched brace on the back. Because the neck is almost all koa, I built it in five pieces for stabilty, with a thin piece of mahogany down the center.

Brad
 
Pete is right, bookmatching is an extra step in the manufacturing process and the extra glue joint if not done perfectly poses some future risk of failure. I did it because the piece of koa I had to work with was 11.5" x 5.5" x 1.75" thick. By resawing that, I got enough to make two ukes out of it. Jonah Kumalae had access to wood I can only dream about.

Brad
 
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