No 5 Monkeypod concert

I had bought a chunk of something the timber yard called Rainwood a couple of years back and eventually thought to work out what it was. It is otherwise known as Monkeypod, a timber that Malaysian builder Jeffrey Yong has been making some very nice guitars from for years. Having seen some of Jeff's recent guitars at the GAL in July, I thought it time to slice it up and make a uke from it. It also fitted in with some experimentation with a new shape for a concert uke (unashamedly inspired by Allen McFarlan's beautiful designs) and working out how to make rope binding.
Monkeypod body and neck, ebony fretboard and head overlay, rock maple and Peruvian walnut rope binding, gidgee bridge, Gotoh tuners (because the guy who sells Pegheadz seems to have disappeared) and Worth Brown strings. Scandinavian Oil finish

Wow...I really like the body shape, old style bridge, dark headstock and shape....nicely done!

Really sweet, Graham. What is Scandinavian Oil?

That looks great. I love that style of binding.

How did you find working with Raintree Graham?

I did two guitars out of it. And then tossed the rest in the bin. I'm extremely allergic to it I found out. Like have ing a bath in fibreglass, and snorting cayenne pepper up my nose.

Scandinavian Oil is one of those tung oil style wipe on/polish off drying oil finishes, though I don't know if it has any tung oil at all in it. All the major paint manufacturers here make a version of it called Danish oil or just furniture oil. I am getting too lazy to worry about nitro any more and the water based clear finishes just don't excite me.

The raintree/monkeypod didn't worry me at all, or no more than any other timber. I react more strongly to Tas Blackwood and I have found it best to be very careful around the dry country acacias like gidgee.

I am still trying to work out whether the rope binding should be continuous or change direction at the tail, so a mirror image effect

cheers

Beautiful looking uke. How does it sound?

From your pix its not apparent that the rope binding has a direction. I vote for uni-directional, as you have it. I've accidentally used half-herringbone purfling running all the same direction and no one seemed to notice. I'd like to do the same with full herringbone. I enjoy the way it sweeps the eye around the body. Its also not traditional, another point in its favor.

Another wood to beware of is ipe. A friend gave me several boards of it left over from a decking job, some of it nicely figured. After letting it dry I made a block-style banjo rim out of it. Rounding the outside of the rim on the disk sander made a cloud of dust, and I waited too long to reach for a respirator. I was disoriented for two days, and nearly lost my balance on a set of stairs. It made a beautiful rim, though.

Sweet. that rope looks great man

I like that uke a lot, great job.