Multi piece necks....?

big plucker

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So, I am a year into this ukulele sickness and approaching my second purchase decision. One of the items on my long list of must haves in this tenor I am going to buy is a SINGLE piece neck... somewhere along my journey to enlightenment I came to the conclusion that fewer segments glued together was better than more - I have seen everything from one piece to five! pieces...
I just noticed that KoAloha is now producing their KTM-00 with what appears to be a two piece neck in the website photo... I was considering one of these as an option...

Am I chasing a red herring here? Anything to this line of thinking?

Thanks,
BP
 
Lamination is sometimes used to strengthen a neck, sometimes as a design element. The luthiers on UU could shed more light on this.
 
So, I am a year into this ukulele sickness and approaching my second purchase decision. One of the items on my long list of must haves in this tenor I am going to buy is a SINGLE piece neck... somewhere along my journey to enlightenment I came to the conclusion that fewer segments glued together was better than more - I have seen everything from one piece to five! pieces...
I just noticed that KoAloha is now producing their KTM-00 with what appears to be a two piece neck in the website photo... I was considering one of these as an option...

Am I chasing a red herring here? Anything to this line of thinking?

Thanks,
BP

A one piece neck is nice looking but it is not stronger. I personally don't build with a one piece neck mainly for the reason that is wastes so much wood. If a neck is glued up well, it is sometimes difficult to detect where the glue lines are.
 
There's also more mass usually in a two-piece, meaning it may transmit vibration better.
 
Stacked necks and scarfed headstocks are employed to minimize waste when building a neck. A one piece neck requires a larger billet of wood and much of that is wasted in the shaping of the neck.

I personally do not like stacked necks, especially when the grain lines of the pieces are not matched well.

Some makers who I am aware employ one piece necks in their instruments are Collings, Martin, Waverly Street, Mya-Moe. I recently purchased a Kala "one of a kind" baritone that has a one piece neck, very rare for Kala.

In the guitar world, Taylor uses stacked necks and they are considered high quality instruments so each to his own.

The Koaloha KTM-00 is a quality instrument and I wouldn't let the fact that it has a stacked neck stop you from purchasing one regardless of my opinion of stacked necks.
 
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I wouldn't consider a neck being one piece or two or three or more being a negative against a uke. My Kelii has a one piece neck, and it looks nice, but I don't know if it's "better" in any other way.

I've seen ukes with more than one type of wood in the neck, and I think that looks cool too. (Mike Pereira's come to mind.) I like the idea of saving wood, frankly.
 
generally speaking, a good glue joint is stronger than the parent wood. Failure does not occur along the glue line.
 
Another thing is, I'm sure a luthier would correct me if I'm wrong on this, but isn't a neck laminated out of several parts also used to stop warping of the neck?
h
 
generally speaking, a good glue joint is stronger than the parent wood. Failure does not occur along the glue line.

Very true. Though it's changed now, the airframe license exam used to require gluing a piece of aircraft wing spar together, then they proceeded to break it. If it broke at the joint, you failed the exam. If glued joints are considered acceptable for an aircraft wing spar, they're probably adequate for a ukulele neck...

Lamination isn't the evil thing it's sometimes thought to be. Leave a piece of 1" plywood outside for a while, subjected to the elements, alongside a nice piece of oak or mahogany, and the plywood will probably still be straight and sound, while the solid wood will most likely not. Tops and backs often will get a bit 'warbly' and not really hurt the ukulele, but a neck just twisting or bending a little is a major issue, and I think a single piece of wood used for the neck is probably more likely, if anything, to twist (I know of 2 Vietnam-made solid wood ukes where the neck twisted soon after delivery, even with normal care and a reasonably humid climate, and both had single piece necks).
 
Well I know for wooden electric guitars I go for as many pieces as possible. More glue, less truss rod adjustment!

You could commission an aluminium uke from Anthony Goulding probably with a one piece metal neck.
 
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