I am fortunate enough to live 10 minutes down the road from Luis who builds LfdM ukuleles and guitars. Because of that I own a tenor with sitka spruce top and amazon rosewood back and sides. It is a cutaway with grand bouche sound hole (large oval) and arm rest. I also own a baritone 22-1/4" scale length with large body of bearclaw spruce and bocote back and side. Both are outstanding instruments.
About one year ago Luis had finished 4 ukes and called me up to see them. One had a sinker cedar top, never heard of that before. One strum and I was floored, sounded so dynamic, sweet and alive. So we hatched a plan. We had talked about doing a 19" scale length super tenor and this was the sound board I wanted to use. We found a stunning piece of curly myrtle, it looks great and Luis liked tap tone, most important. It will be a non-cutaway with a round sound hole, Luis is making the body a bit deeper than normal to take advantage of the longer scale length
Below are pictures of the sinker cedar tops he had available to pick from. Again I let his ear do the choosing. A picture of the raw myrtle oriented two different way. Then top and back glued up and sides bent with some naptha on it to show the color
About one year ago Luis had finished 4 ukes and called me up to see them. One had a sinker cedar top, never heard of that before. One strum and I was floored, sounded so dynamic, sweet and alive. So we hatched a plan. We had talked about doing a 19" scale length super tenor and this was the sound board I wanted to use. We found a stunning piece of curly myrtle, it looks great and Luis liked tap tone, most important. It will be a non-cutaway with a round sound hole, Luis is making the body a bit deeper than normal to take advantage of the longer scale length
Below are pictures of the sinker cedar tops he had available to pick from. Again I let his ear do the choosing. A picture of the raw myrtle oriented two different way. Then top and back glued up and sides bent with some naptha on it to show the color