experimentjon
Well-known member
Kanilea K1 Tenor, KoAloha SuperConcert, Kamaka Soprano
Well, today, I purchased a KoAloha SuperConcert exactly one year out of the factory. It was used, but very well taken care of, and I got it for a rather nice price. It came with the free factory-tenor case, but the previous owner had broken the strap that holds the neck in place. And I felt that especially without the strap, the uke moved around way too much in the case...it would move not only up and down, but also left and right, since it's concert body didn't quite fill the tenor case.
So today, I went to Easy Music Center to get a new concert case, hoping that it would fit my superconcert. But after trying every case they had, about 5 varieties, none of them fit, and the salesperson told me that nobody made superconcert cases. The closest fitting one was an $89 tweed tenor case. And I was not about to drop that much on a case that was only marginally better than the one I had.
So I went home, and I MacGyver a solution. I ended up having a somewhat-decent result, and saved myself $90 dollars (which is a lot of money for a college student.) All it took was an old science-fair poster board, a box-cutter, hot glue, a bit of paint, and time.
First, strip out the felt part of the case lining. You'll see that these cases are actually made of Styrofoam (in case you didn't already know that), so I figured that corrugated cardboard would be even better protection. Anyhow, I cut strips of cardboard 2 inches wide as filler.
Some hot glue later, ta-da! A lot of the gap was filled. Just imagine that all of that was actually space between the uke and the sides of the case. I also reglued the neck-strap that fell off. (Hot glue=the only thing better than duct tape for fixing stuff.)
Looked sort of primitive, so I painted the cardboard. Unfortunately, I didn't have any paint except for very expensive modeling paint, (from back when I built Gundams) so I just used that. I probably used about a dollar worth, and cheaped out of using any more to make it totally black. I also reglued the felt part that I stripped out, for inside lining, so that the uke would have something nice and soft to press against.
And there we go! I had my own custom case for my superconcert. A bit primitive, but the uke fits a lot better now, and feels somewhat more protected. So if you have a superconcert and are just using a tenor case, maybe this would work for you too! And I'm sure you could fabricate your case in a much less crude fashion than I did.
Now I just have to decide if I want to change out these Worth strings for Aquilas...(Maybe I should change out the D'Addarios on the Kamaka for Aquilas too...)