Baritone neck on a tenor body, who's done it?

Baritone neck on a tenor body, who's done it? Has anyone made one of these frankensteins yet? I would love to hear/see one

Many builders including Kamaka, King, and Lichty (to name 3 off the top of my head) make/made a long neck tenor, 19" scale instead of 20".

Here's a Kamaka at HMS that you can see and hear. There is more bell-like tone on the trebles.

http://www.theukulelesite.com/kamaka-tenor-long-neck-3.html

Not to rain on your parade, but taking a baritone neck from one uke and putting it onto a tenor body from another would not work. The frets are set to distances based on the location of the bridge. Marrying two different ukes is not likely to place the bridge and frets correctly relative to each other. So the intonation would not even be close.

However, if you intend to put an unfretted bari neck on a tenor body and fret it accrordingly from scratch, that might work. But that is a demanding task.

good luck.
Bill

As long as the distance from the nut to the saddle is consistent then it really doesn't matter how large the body is. Basic fretboard info: The 12th fret is supposed to be exactly halfway between the nut and the saddle.

Sooooooo......

If you just slapped a baritone neck on a tenor ukulele then Bill is correct. It will not work. His solution of using an unfretted neck would work, but a simpler solution would be to move the bridge to correct the distance between the saddle and the nut (making sure the 12th fret is exactly in the middle).

I'm not sure what the benefit would be of such a build. I suspect it would decrease the volume considerably, but I suppose there's the possibility that it would give a different tone to the baritone strings. That could be good or bad... I think it would be more beneficial to have a tenor neck on a baritone body, which should give you more volume, but again, I have no idea how that would affect the tone. It could be great as a tenor, probably not so great as a baritone though....

That Kamaka sounds amazing!

I was just really curious if anyone had made one, I was thinking more along the line that it would be nice to have a small body baritone The benefits for me would be less weight/size to carry around but with a wider neck and bigger fret spacing that I am used to. It would have to be 19" scale though. my 20" scale baritones that are strung gcea are really pushing the high A to its limit, and I break those often. I know the sound would definitely be different which is why I am intrigued by it.

Interesting question. I recently purchased a (very expensive) back and side set to build a baritone with. When I recieved it the back plates were a bit narrower than advertised, making a 10" wide lower bout a stretch. I may need to make the body closer to a tenor size, but really wanted to do a baritone scale. Maybe a 19" scale tuned GCEA will be the best compromise.

Habanera Hal said:

Interesting question. I recently purchased a (very expensive) back and side set to build a baritone with. When I recieved it the back plates were a bit narrower than advertised, making a 10" wide lower bout a stretch. I may need to make the body closer to a tenor size, but really wanted to do a baritone scale. Maybe a 19" scale tuned GCEA will be the best compromise.

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Yes! That sounds awesome, I would love to see how that comes out. If you wanna go with a different shape, take a look at veracruz jaranas, those are mexican ukulele-ish instruments. The usually have slim bodies and wide necks. Hard to find them in the states otherwise I would already have several . I managed to get my hands on a used huasteca jarana though and I'll definitely be modding a baritone neck onto that instrument. Since the body is almost the same dimensions, its just deeper. The neck on mine is all messed up, but the body is still intact so I might as well make something of it. Here's what those look like

Its kind of a soprano neck on a baritone body. But not having a real bridge led to mine having terrible intonation issues, so even more reason for me to uke-ify it.

Anyways here are the veracruz jaranas I was talking about, slim body with a big neck.



Here's a 4 string one thats baritone size, with my fav body shape to date. I want something like this but with a slightly smaller body.

Went to a music festival in Mexico a few months back and they were two guys from Veracruz there playing their jaranas and playing traditional folk songs. Sounded great. Very slim through the body, but nice sound.

focsle said:

Went to a music festival in Mexico a few months back and they were two guys from Veracruz there playing their jaranas and playing traditional folk songs. Sounded great. Very slim through the body, but nice sound.

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Lucky! I have yet to go down there to experience that, I will one day though.

Wow, what a great sound from that jaranas.
Cliff

jcarlos said:

Yes! That sounds awesome, I would love to see how that comes out. If you wanna go with a different shape, take a look at veracruz jaranas, those are mexican ukulele-ish instruments. The usually have slim bodies and wide necks. Hard to find them in the states otherwise I would already have several . I managed to get my hands on a used huasteca jarana though and I'll definitely be modding a baritone neck onto that instrument. Since the body is almost the same dimensions, its just deeper. The neck on mine is all messed up, but the body is still intact so I might as well make something of it. Here's what those look like

Its kind of a soprano neck on a baritone body. But not having a real bridge led to mine having terrible intonation issues, so even more reason for me to uke-ify it.

Click to expand...

Very cool looking. I like the shape of the 5 stringer. Funny because my plan was to build the baritone as a six-string with slotted headstock.

Bruce Weiart's baritone uke has a smaller body than any of my other baris. Not as small as a tenor, but close. I found it too small for the expected sound.