Outdoor Ukulele Torture Test - Belize

Tsani

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Last week I was in Belize to do a service project in a remote village. My son came with me and we took two ukes. We took my Aloha soprano and an Outdoor Ukulele that was loaned to me by haolejohn. We put the Outdoor Ukulele through the following tests and we can report that instrument survived them all and played well afterward.

1. Water Test: We submerged the Outdoor Ukulele in the ocean. We then shook all the water out of it and played a song. No problem. There will be video of this posted later.

2. Heat: The Outdoor Ukulele was subjected to some serious heat conditions just due to the climate of Belize. However, this test was not very severe due to the fact that we did not do anything like leaving it in a hot car. I think that is a test worth doing. Maybe someone in Arizona or New Mexico could try it.

3. Belizean Children: We pretty much let the Belizean kids have their way with the uke, and some of them think they are punk rockers. They really liked the uke and they decided to play "keep away" with us several times. We had to chase them around the yard to get it back. No damage.

4. Hiking: We went on a long river trip followed by a hike to some Mayan ruins. The uke went with us, carried in a gig bag. We carried it to the top of the highest pyramid at Lamanai. I played a song on it from the top. I have to say it wasn't much of a performance since I was out of breath from the climb and in a hurry to catch up with the rest of the tour, but the uke performed just fine. All the mistakes are my fault.

We think that the Outdoor Uke performed very well under some extreme conditions. We had a violin player in our group and he was so impressed that he said he wanted to get one. I would say that the ODU passed with flying colors.

Our ODU has the original polycarbonate friction pegs. I don't think that the Grover tuners would hold up well against sea water and tropical rain. I am not sure what strings are on the ODU. We will have to ask haolejohn. :music:
 
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