c.1920 Harmony Super Flamed Mahogany Uke

I do a LOT of vintage uke repairs/restoration... and visit MandolinCafe.com and post pics of the mandos I work on over at those forums, but I figured I'd share pretty ukes with you all as well, if you're interested.

Here's a recent Harmony-made unmarked soprano I finished. These date in the late teens and early 20s and are a set-neck (rather than doweled) neck join. This particular one is just glorious in all respects!

Check out a full blog post by clicking here.

What did you do to it? It is beautiful. How do those old ones sound?

Aloha Jake,
Love those 20's peanut shaped ukes...with the rope binding...you just fixed the loose binding..looks like a deluxe model...
Thanks for sharing..MM Stan

Thanks for posting that Jake, you really do beautiful restorations. I enjoy looking at your website to see the instruments you bring back to life.

I really like when there are some before pictures as well.

Thanks for taking the time to post the photos here on UU!

Beautiful ukulele, beautiful restoration!! Thanks for sharing here. I've enjoyed seeing your work on your blog a few times... always great stuff.

mm stan said:

Aloha Jake,
Love those 20's peanut shaped ukes...with the rope binding...you just fixed the loose binding..looks like a deluxe model...
Thanks for sharing..MM Stan

Click to expand...

Actually, the work included: fret dress, brace reglues to the top and back, reglue of the bridge, reglue of a crack on the top, cleaning, and setup. The usual works save that I didn't have to do a neck set, which I often have to do on the more typical (slightly later) doweled models. And yup, definitely a deluxe model. Usually one finds these with only a bit of rope around the soundhole or on the top edge, but I've seen a slightly more deluxe version than this with the stripe down the headstock, too, and one on the back.

Fortunately none of the binding on this one was loose, but there are a couple spots where there's a tiny gap between the top edge and binding inside edge (though, I'd have to pull the binding off, cut it down, and glue it back in to fix that... not really necessary as one can barely see it anyhow).

Anyhow! Thanks for the kudos everyone.

Rem50 -- this sounds loud, sweet and warm, but with the clarity and snap one expects from a smaller bodied uke.

To everyone else -- I'll try to post photos of the old ukes here as I go from now on. It's fun to show off some of these beauts!

That's a real beauty. Flamed mahogany is exciting. Nice work, too, Jake.

Beautiful uke! I'm particularly fond of the wooden pegs.

That's a sweet uke! I love the old USA made Harmony instruments. Your uke is convincing me more and more that my no-name uke is indeed a Harmony. the body, neck, heel are the same. Mine is just a plane jane, but the Harmonyisms are there.

Dan

That's a beautiful Uke! And great job on the restoration