First; lovely work--the BACK, I love the mirroring of the wood grain. Second: how does the offset sound hole affect the "sweet spot" which in Ukuleles, is supposed to be above the sound hole (as opposed to guitars where it is below the sound hole, between hole and bridge)?
First of all, thank you all very much for the kind comments! It really does mean a lot to me.
About the sound hole; I did a lot of blog reading and also purchaced the book "The Ukulele - by Denis Gilbert" as well as the Hana Lima book before attempting my first uke. Then, soon after, I discovered this website. I wish I had discovered it sooner! Since then I've been lurking and trying to take in all the information from the wealth of experience here.
I was very inspired by the look of Eric DeVine's ukes (thank you Eric!!) and I also read an interview with the owner of a local, Wisconsin based guitar builder called McPherson Guitars (
click here) that has a signature, oddly placed sound hole.
McPherson described the soundboard as a trampoline that vibrates up and down with the highest part of the wave naturally being in the center. So he didn't want to remove the part of the soundboard that had the highest potential for tone and volume. I realize that that is an oversimplification of what is happening, and that might be ok for guitars and not ukes, and it may also be a load of crap. I just don't know. I am the farthest thing from an expert on any uke-related subject, believe me. Any number of people here, including every person who responded to this thread, could tell you a lot more that I can about the subject.
But, I wanted to see if I could make one and I was curious how it would sound. As a long time wood carver and novice uke player, the creative side of my brain took over for a while.
I have to say, however, that I am very, very pleased with how this one turned out. The sound has a lot of volume and is nice and warm without the tone overpowering the notes, if you know what I mean. I once had an acoustic bass that I hated because even though it played nice, the actual notes were covered up by the resonance of the instrument. But that is not the case with this uke. It is nice and clear with a warm, rich tone.
Thanks everyone!
(p.s. I will put pictures of future ukes up in one of the other forums from now on, like uke talk or one of the others.
Being a newbie and all, I don't want to step on any toes.)