hey drose I think you'll like it. They sound and feel great to me and we've had a few come through the shop. We had some Narra wood long neck sops that sounded really cool. These I are all hand made in Philippines and finished in Thailand.
This is the message I got from Honolele on Facebook on March 11:
"Hi! We just finished some stock of guitalele 21" with blank on fret board waiting for your order with custom inlay. This is just special price 400 USD with free hardcase!! just order honoleleukes@gmail.com"
I currently live in Bangkok and immediately called Mr. Kim, the owner(?) of Honolele. I told him that if it's well built with very good intonation and action, I will buy one for sure!
He told me that they're being finished in the Phillipines and would be able to show me one in the early part of April. Here is the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Honolele-Ukes/114901131941414?fref=ts
Funny you should ask. I moved back "home" to China last August, but I'm just now in Bangkok taking care of unfinished business and vacationing.Hey, took a bit of a sabbatical from uu for a while, quite a while. But did you ever end up getting that uke?
hificage james
I played with one in ukerepublic a few weeks ago, a long neck concert.
I don't think I could give you a qualified review of it after only picking it up for a minute, but I thought it was a great lil' uke for the price.
It is for sure handbuilt all the way. The braces are hand cut, maybe a little rough looking for some, but the uke played well and sounded good, for the two minutes I played it...
It was mostly just personal preference as to why I didn't buy it. This one had a slothead stock. I'm not a fan of slotheads (I know most people love them, but I think they are too much on a uke, I like a normal headstock with pegheads/friction tuners)...For the price, it was on my list of possibilies for that days purchase, but I went in looking for a Loprinzi tenor. The Honolele had a tenor neck, but I didn't care for the concert size body. The rope binding and rosette are simple but look very good, I thought the uke had it's charm for sure.
I think they are priced very fair for the quality of the build, a Koolau they are not, but they also don't carry that price tag either.