Anybody familier with this seller, and/or Uke?

Tudorp

Big guy with a lil' uke..
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I thought so too, but just thought it was weird that a cheap built uke would bother with making a solid mahogany one. I would bet all that it is not a well made Uke, but just thought it was weird for the solid wood reason. Even being cheap built, it would be such a waste of real wood. I am sure it is probably a plywood, and written as "solid", and VERY misleading. Plywood IS solid wood, it's just laminated thin sheets of wood. But technically still solid wood.. I hate this sort of advertising and playing with words and terms. I just wondered if anyone else saw this, and thought "huh?"
 
They wouldn't know "solid" if they tripped over it. Did you notice that they claim that this uke has a "rosewood neck and mahogany fretboard"? No credibility here....
 
Yup.. I noticed that too.. But looking at their store, they apparently are in the "instrument" business, albeit cheap instrument business. Looks like they sell a bunch of hack sweat shop instruments. This one just kinda irritated me.
 
I just got a reply from them. When I first saw it, I wrote them and questioned their "termology" and they sent back a short reply "This is solid mahogany. It is not plywood or a laminate."
Still very much doubt it, but at least they are sticking to their story.. lol
 
Oh, wow! I have this ukulele! I mean, I'm only surprised because this is the exact uke a friend of mine dumped on me after he told me he paid $20 for it online, but couldn't really play it. Half the reason he "couldn't really play it" was that, well, it sounds awful. The intonation sucks, the action is way too high (although it could probably be fixed; just not worth it to me), and the craftsmanship itself was sloppy. Not worth anything over five bucks, and even that's stretching it.

Here are some pictures I took of it when I was trying to figure out what kind of ukulele it actually is. Turns out it's one of those low-end student models. (They call it "Harmonia"; I still don't know which company actually produces it.)

It doesn't look too bad. The body actually looks kinda pretty, but it doesn't sound as nearly as good as it looks. (Fitted with ultra-cheap plastic friction tuners that barely keep any of the strings in tune for longer than a minute.)

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Mike, the bridge isn't even screwed on, it's just flat glued onto the top. There's a lot of excess residue around the whole thing and it's slightly askew. The nut and saddle are cheap plastic.

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I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but the frets aren't exactly even or straight. The inlays are plastic but they look a little pearled.

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Here's the inside. I'm still not entirely convinced that this is entirely laminate. It's pretty heavy, in comparison to the other lams I have, and it feels as solid as my Ohana. The top (and correct me if I'm wrong) looks to be laminate (and I just realized that the top is blurry since I was trying to get a clear focus on the interior, but there isn't any grain on the side of the soundhole), but I can't tell too much with the sides and back.

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Since I took these pictures (which was about a year ago), I took off the strings (I put the clear fluorocarbons on there because I thought it was a string problem that made it sound so odd) and I'm prepping it for some custom artwork I plan to do, for decorative purposes. I could probably mess around with this uke some more to get it to sound decent, but to me it's not worth the money or energy.

My verdict: unless you want to pay $20-$60 for something you could find at a yard sale for $2, don't bother with this thing at all. At the same price range, stick with the Dolphins.
 
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