New Member/Old Uke

emkc

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IMG_3862.jpg

Gallery:
https://imgur.com/a/bs3X82t

I received this as a Christmas present from my parents mid-1960s. It is a made in U.S.A. Harmony. Plastic fretboard. 13 1/4” scale. The decorative note detail is spray painted on, and if you’ll notice, one of the note head stencils must have fallen off when finishing, and they just left it.

I played it for a couple of years then got a guitar and played that for a couple of years. Moved to doublebass then bass guitar which has been my main instrument since. After years of playing bass in bands and jam situations, I have started playing music with my wife on guitar—just living room stuff. Lately I’ve been wanting to play a more harmony based instrument (as a vehicle to a better understanding music theory), but I have a difficult time fretting a guitar.

We were watching the Ken Burns country music documentary and I saw a tenor guitar in a couple of scenes which piqued my interest, and read a bit about those. In the course of looking around I came upon the baritone ukulele and found that it is tuned like a guitar’s top four strings. Completely on impulse, I ordered a baritone uke, but it will be a few weeks before I receive it.

In the meantime I dug this out of storage (my mom’s garage) and found that the bridge had come unglued. I fashioned a clamp and glued it with Titebond hide glue and left it clamped overnight.
I strung it up with D’Addario Nyltech strings EJ88S: G .0256, C .0362, E .0303, A .0236. (Package description: warm, punchy, gut-like tone.)

I’ve been banging away on it for a couple of hours, continually retuning it as the strings stretch. It seems really loud.
I’m so looking forward to getting the bari, as this neck is really tiny. Can’t wait to learn how to play.

Compared to some of the beautiful instruments I see available today, this is obviously closer to the toy end of the spectrum, but I dig that I’m playing something I had when I was a kid.
 
Welcome to UU!
It's fantastic indeed, to play on your old first uke. It will be so much pleasure when your baritone arrives.
 
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