A tenor with influences from the past

Here’s my latest tenor which was influenced by instruments from the past. It’s made of sapele with the decoration in walnut and maple. It was made with a temporary mould put together in a couple of hours. I am interested to know what others reckon to this design.

The box has a tighter waist and smaller lower bout than most ukes and the soundhole is moved away from the neck.

I made about 120 off 6x6x2 mm squares for the rosette and centre strips and 160 off 6x3x2 mm for the ‘purfling’. The pieces were stuck in place with CA.

For those new to building who don’t see what I did, I glued the ‘purfling’ pieces in a 4x2 mm rebate, cleaned up the soundboard surface, then routed out a 1.5x5 mm rebate for the maple binding.

The uke top (1.8 mm) has a patch and 3 fans, the back (2 mm) has 3 braces.

The neck is attached with glued tenon and captive bolt.

The fretboard and bridge are Chinese made. I prefer machine heads but the design demanded this headstock shape and friction tuners.

It’s finished in Tru oil on top of shellac and has Living Waters strings with low G.

Its loud and sounds clear and punchy, perhaps not as mellow as my recent tenors with a larger lower bout. I have already made a proper mould and Fox bender so that I can produce this box shape more accurately on future instruments.

I think that looks amazing. You should make more of them in that style!

Here are my tenor shapes to date:

The first squarish box, used for 10 instruments, the middle is my current box shape with 5 instruments made, and finally the instrument in this post. I think you can see how different this box is to the previous ones.

The style reminds me of a Romantic guitar (like the one Rob plays below). To me, it just screams out to play the music of Sor. I love it. I wish more ukuleles had that type of design.

Your newest rendition reminds me of the shape of a Parlor Guitar. This is quite a beautiful ukulele, the time and care taken in your design with the squares for Rosette, Purfling and center strip show through.
Fabulous craftsmanship.

Beautiful work

That is right up my street. I am a sucker for fancy purfling. Well done.
Max