greenscoe
Well-known member
My latest tenor is made of spalted beech. Beech is often considered hard, heavy and uninteresting and pros may say they couldn’t sell a beech instrument. I like spalted beech: I used it to make a pineapple soprano in my first year and have been using it for decoration on my other instruments.
http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com...o-pineaffle&highlight=pineaffle+soprano+beech
From my small board, I chose the most spalted part for the back (not a bad bookmatch), the sides have less spalting (poor matching) and the soundboard has just a few dark lines. However its all quarter sawn, so shows the wood’s medullary rays, most noticeable on the soundboard (which I find attractive).
It’s finished in Tru Oil over shellac: the soundboard has blonde shellac, the back and sides a darker shellac to give a contrast.
The rosette and end graft are spalted beech bounded with walnut: the bindings are also walnut and there’s a touch of maple for the purfling.
The neck started life in China, but I grafted on wood to make a tapered dovetail joint, added the end cap and headplate, drilled the holes and did the final shaping. Still a little work but less than starting from scratch. The fretboard and bridge are also Chinese.
It has Grover machineheads and Seaguar strings with low G (40, 50, 60, and 90lb line).
This is the 4th tenor of this design (sapele, cherry and walnut), but the other 3 had an Engelman Spruce soundboard. Despite this, all four instruments are not dissimilar in terms of volume, tone and sustain. Maybe this one has less treble/more bass or maybe that’s what I was expecting to hear? I’m certainly happy with the way this instrument performs.
So now that Summer has arrived, who’s going to join me on the beech?
http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com...o-pineaffle&highlight=pineaffle+soprano+beech
From my small board, I chose the most spalted part for the back (not a bad bookmatch), the sides have less spalting (poor matching) and the soundboard has just a few dark lines. However its all quarter sawn, so shows the wood’s medullary rays, most noticeable on the soundboard (which I find attractive).
It’s finished in Tru Oil over shellac: the soundboard has blonde shellac, the back and sides a darker shellac to give a contrast.
The rosette and end graft are spalted beech bounded with walnut: the bindings are also walnut and there’s a touch of maple for the purfling.
The neck started life in China, but I grafted on wood to make a tapered dovetail joint, added the end cap and headplate, drilled the holes and did the final shaping. Still a little work but less than starting from scratch. The fretboard and bridge are also Chinese.
It has Grover machineheads and Seaguar strings with low G (40, 50, 60, and 90lb line).
This is the 4th tenor of this design (sapele, cherry and walnut), but the other 3 had an Engelman Spruce soundboard. Despite this, all four instruments are not dissimilar in terms of volume, tone and sustain. Maybe this one has less treble/more bass or maybe that’s what I was expecting to hear? I’m certainly happy with the way this instrument performs.
So now that Summer has arrived, who’s going to join me on the beech?
