Updated Bruce Wei Consensus?

[anthonyg]

Newbie question: are "Bruce Wei" ukuleles all made by one person? Or is this a factory with many employees?

Brucewei's business practices have changed over time and I can't say for certain exactly what he's doing right now.
It used to be that bucewei was the middleman/seller for a couple of small builders with a handful of employee's. For the last few years I believe that he has been building them himself.

[kohanmike]

Brucewei's business practices have changed over time and I can't say for certain exactly what he's doing right now.
It used to be that bucewei was the middleman/seller for a couple of small builders with a handful of employee's. For the last few years I believe that he has been building them himself.

Let me add to that please. Bruce told me specifically that for a while he allowed other builders to sell on his eBay store, but he realized that the poor quality ukes were giving him a bad name, even though he did not build them, so he stopped that years ago. I just sent him an email asking who actually builds his custom and ready made ukes. It's just after midnight here in Los Angeles (Sunday to Monday), 2:12 PM Monday in Vietnam. I might get a quick answer.

[dave.howe.6700@gmail.com]

Mike, did you get a response. I am considering getting a D hole tenor like the one you got from BW.

[kohanmike]

Mike, did you get a response. I am considering getting a D hole tenor like the one you got from BW.

Yes, sorry I neglected to post here. He wrote, "All the instruments & parts (except bone/horn) in my eBay store, as well as custom made, have been built in my workshop in Vietnam. I'm Taiwanese, my family is in Vietnam so most of my time is spent working with my staff in my workshop there."

In the last few days I've seen a couple of gypsy style on his eBay store, with D and oval sound hole. My custom including a tailpiece, which I don't see anymore, was $780 including shipping. The ready made are around $600 including shipping.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bruce-Wei-S...UAAOSw-sFgF2Gp

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bruce-Wei-S...UAAOSwwGdf8paF

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bruce-Wei-S...8AAOSwq3dgD5G3

[kohanmike]

Bill is making a lot of assumptions about dave.howe, first, Dave never mentioned a custom, and "...when you know absolutely nothing about playing or owning ukuleles," how did you discern that from Dave's post? I'm not sure who Bill is referring to about playing stringed instruments for 50 years, is it me? Before I ordered my first custom, I went through 16. With my first hand experience of Bruce's ukes, he does good work.