CPG
Well-known member
I snagged a 1940s Martins concert for a good price on Ebay a few months ago and posted a real NUD when I got it. It had a few cracks, but they were all well repaired, the setup wasn't bad, and the tuners were upgraded to Gotoh UPTs.
However, while it was good, it just wasn't as great as it could have been. The action was a hair on the high side for my tastes, and more annoying was that there were a few sharps fret ends and burrs that my pinky would sometimes catch on when moving closed position chords up the neck. I probably could have dealt with the burrs, but there wasn't enough saddle to lower the action the usual way, so I ultimately decided to send it off to someone who I knew had expertise in working on old ukes.
I don't remember where I first ran across Jake Wildwood, but at some point I became familiar with his work and his blog, so I gave him a ring and asked if he had time to set this up for me. Turns out this is his slow season so I shipped it off to him early last week.
Well he got the work done promptly and I got it back today. Jake was able to lower the action by resetting the neck a hair and he freshly leveled and smoothed out the frets. It is smooth and slinky. Plays and sounds great!
The uke made it onto his blog too, so rather than bore you with my crappy playing and lousy cell phone pics I'll just share the link to Jake's blog post where he includes a nice description of the uke and the work he did, along with some nice photos, and a nice video/sound sample.
https://jakewildwood.blogspot.com/2019/09/1940s-martin-1c-concert-ukulele.html
So glad I decided to send this too him!
However, while it was good, it just wasn't as great as it could have been. The action was a hair on the high side for my tastes, and more annoying was that there were a few sharps fret ends and burrs that my pinky would sometimes catch on when moving closed position chords up the neck. I probably could have dealt with the burrs, but there wasn't enough saddle to lower the action the usual way, so I ultimately decided to send it off to someone who I knew had expertise in working on old ukes.
I don't remember where I first ran across Jake Wildwood, but at some point I became familiar with his work and his blog, so I gave him a ring and asked if he had time to set this up for me. Turns out this is his slow season so I shipped it off to him early last week.
Well he got the work done promptly and I got it back today. Jake was able to lower the action by resetting the neck a hair and he freshly leveled and smoothed out the frets. It is smooth and slinky. Plays and sounds great!
The uke made it onto his blog too, so rather than bore you with my crappy playing and lousy cell phone pics I'll just share the link to Jake's blog post where he includes a nice description of the uke and the work he did, along with some nice photos, and a nice video/sound sample.
https://jakewildwood.blogspot.com/2019/09/1940s-martin-1c-concert-ukulele.html
So glad I decided to send this too him!
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