Definition of Solid Wood?

Hi there, I am a uke novice in every way. Am looking to upgrade a little to a solid wood ukulele. Unfortunately, very few of the well known brands are available where I live so I need informed judgment! What is the definition of a "solid wood ukulele"? Does it mean that the soundboard is made of one piece of wood and that there are no joins? Or does a ukulele made with wood (e.g. mahogany) top, back and sides qualify, even if they are bonded? Thanks in advance!

Solid wood is normally just one thickness, laminate is multiple thin pieces stuck together.

Solid wood means that all the sides of the instrument are made from single-layered slices of wood. However sometimes two (or more) pieces of solid wood are glued side by side to make, for example, the back.

The reason this matters is consistency and the fulfillment of your expectations. If a builder says that the instrument is solid mahogany, then you can anticipate a certain tone. If the ukulele is made of laminated wood (several thin slices of something glued together with an ornamental mahogany layer on top for show), it is a complete gamble regarding the sound you get. It certainly won't sound bad but if you have paid for the mahogany sound, you may or may not get it--depending on the exact composition of the woods used in the laminate. That is the objective difference between solid and laminate.

The subjective difference is quality of sound and sustain. Conventional wisdom has it that solid wood sounds better. I myself believe that. However it is only a belief and I admit that it cannot be proven that all of us aren't merely thinking solid wood sounds better because we assume that it will. That's for each person to judge.

"Buyer Beware" can save you some problems if you want a completely all solid wood ukulele. An example is a trend for an ad to say something like "All solid wood spruce top and mahogany sides and back" Which sounds like the ukulele is all solid but might mean the sides and back are laminate mahogany. My solution to this problem is:

1. Talk to trusted dealers selling the ukuleles
2. Read reviews from websites like gotaukulele.com and ukestuff.info.
3. Ask questions here

As Ed1 and the others have said, you have to read the description carefully of a listed uke.

"All Koa" usually means it is a laminate body with a thin outer layer of koa wood for looks. (Or other fancy-looking woods.) Many laminate ukes sound rather boxy and dull. But there are some gems out there. One advantage of laminate is that it is strong and not as susceptible to shrinkage and swelling due to large changes in humidity and temperature.

"Solid Koa Top and All Koa Body." Means only the top (soundboard) of the uke is made of solid Koa wood. Usually, two pieces of spruce joined together in a bookend (mirror image) fashion. The koa in the back and sides is the top layer of a laminate. Usually, sounds better than an all-laminate body with better projection and a fuller sound. But not always.

"Solid Koa" or "Solid Spruce Top, with Solid Koa body." Means the top is made of solid koa or spruce wood. Usually one or two pieces. The back and sides are made of solid koa wood. Usually two pieces for the back and two for the sides. But a few higher end sopranos are made with one-piece top, back and sides.

There is some discussion about whether bamboo ukuleles are solid or technically a laminate. While all-bamboo, the pieces than make up the planks are strips of bamboo in a resin. The makers tend to call the ukes: "All Solid Bamboo."

Necks are usually make of a solid wood. The most common is mahogany. Some are carved from one piece. Others have heels (the part of the neck that joins to the body) that is made of 3 pieces of solid wood glued together and then shaped.

The following are decorative accents added to a ukulele often referred to as "bling." They do not affect the sound of a ukulele at all. They are for aesthetic purposes only. Some inexpensive ukes have a lot of bling and look impressive, but don't sound very good:

"Binding" is an edge around the top and possibly the back that is both decorative and helps protect the edges of the body. It can be made of wood, or a man-made material.

"Purfling" is very thin strips of material added for decoration around the edges, of the body, rosette and other parts of a uke.

"Rosette" a decorative design around the soundhole.

You can find ukulele reviews, playing tips and a lot of information expressly written for new and beginners at: www.gotaukulele.com
I wish I had found it earlier when I was just starting out. I would have bought a different first ukulele.

Oh, one other thing: you'll see "setup" or "action" mentioned a lot on the Forum. Mostly, it means the height of the strings from the top of the 1st fret and the 12th fret to the bottom of the strings. A good setup lowers the height to make playing much easier. Especially for barre chords. Most quality online ukulele stores include a setup in the cost. Other places, such as Amazon do not even open the box. They sell whatever the maker sent them. As is. There are a handful of ukes that come from the factory setup with an OK average height.

Hope this helps. Have fun.

Keep in mind that playing a uke made of poor quality solid wood may be a much worse experience than one made of high quality laminate. Solid wood is not necessarily an indicator that the uke will actually be better sounding than a laminate, particularly for low cost ukes.

Solid Wood

Croaky Keith said:

Solid wood is normally just one thickness, laminate is multiple thin pieces stuck together.

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Understood. I have two laminates which play quite well but I was looking to try a different sound. Thanks for the response!

Oh this is great information indeed -- thank you so much! I got the impression (after a lot of reading) that "solid wood" strictly means that the sound board is made of only one piece of wood. It made it very confusing to know what to look for. Glad to know that solid wood also means it can be bonded. Completely agree about the subjectivity of it. I have two laminates which I really love, and I tried some solid woods which I wasn't thrilled about. Thanks for taking such trouble with a newbie.

Wonderful. I didn't know about ukestuff.info -- thanks for that! Yes, you are spot on! The product description often obscures the specs of the ukulele and this added to my confusion. Really glad I found this forum; you guys have been brilliant, helpful and so supportive!

Thank you!! You've just clarified an error I made -- I hadn't realised that only the top is referred to as the soundboard. I assumed it was the whole head.This is excellent, excellent information, and you've put it more clearly than anything I've read. I've read and heard a lot of these terms but didn't exactly know what they were or what purpose they served. And I didn't know about setup at all. Thank you for taking the trouble to write this all out. It's invaluable and even answers the questions I didn't think to ask.

This is very good to know. I'll know not to rush into buying a ukulele just because it's "solid wood". Love this forum; thank you for all these great responses!

sharondappled said:

Oh this is great information indeed -- thank you so much! I got the impression (after a lot of reading) that "solid wood" strictly means that the sound board is made of only one piece of wood. It made it very confusing to know what to look for. Glad to know that solid wood also means it can be bonded. Completely agree about the subjectivity of it. I have two laminates which I really love, and I tried some solid woods which I wasn't thrilled about. Thanks for taking such trouble with a newbie.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean by bonded, but solid does just mean one piece of wood. Laminate means multiple layers of wood. Like plywood. Let's ignore bamboo which people sometimes argue about.

Just sticking to generalities, since there are exceptions like the bamboo I mentioned:

The body of the uke is made up of three parts with respect to tonewoods. The top or front (also called the soundboard), the sides, and the back. Most ukes have matching back and sides, so you can generally group them together.

Some ukes have matching top, back and sides. Some have a top that's different from the back and sides. This is because the top does most of the work in producing the sound--hence soundboard.

So there are ukes that are all laminate, "all" referring to the whole body. And ukes that are all solid. And ukes that have a solid top and laminate back and sides.

Solid wood is usually more expensive and usually better sounding than laminate, and usually more desirable. Laminate is sometimes more durable than solid wood.

One other thing: since solid wood has to be got naturally--it can't be constructed, it's harder to get single bigger pieces. So for most solid wood ukuleles, especially larger than soprano, the top and back are each actually two solid pieces glued side by side (not on top of each other). You'll notice most ukes if you stand them up and look at either the top/soundboard or the bottom, the wood has loosely matching grain patterns on the left and right. This is because a single slab of wood was sliced in two and set side by side to make that top or bottom. It's still solid. So solid vs laminate is in reference to layering.

Rule of thumb: if the description of the uke doesn't explicitly say solid, then that part of the body probably isn't solid, it's laminate. This is because solid is considered better and laminate is considered worse. So uke descriptions will claim "solid" as a selling point, but when it's laminate, the description will just omit this and name the wood. They're not claiming the bodies are solid. They're just not proclaiming the fact that they're laminate.

Much higher end ukes might omit "solid" in the description, but prospective buyers for those are generally familiar with all this and know they're getting a solid wood instrument.

And yes, a poorly made solid wood uke can sound worse than a better constructed laminate. Build quality is king.

"Solid" means "Not gaseous, liquid, or plasma . . . "

There's a TON of marketing speak and misinformation, but USUALLY (not always, see above...) in luthiery, "solid wood" means "We sliced a tree and bent the wood into a ukulele shape."

Remember: The TOP matters a TON. The rest of the instrument? The inventor of the Modern classical guitar, Antonio de Torres Jurado, built a guitar entirely of paper mache, except the top, which he kept swapping out, the top it's currently displayed with is spruce. He determined that for his designs, the material of the body didn't matter, Only the top.

"Laminate" means "We shaved some wood REALLY thin, then put the layers together in a way that should improve its strength and dimensional stability."

There's nothing necessarily wrong with laminate, even in the top, provided the design is sound. The problem comes in when a builder stops making an "inexpensive" uke and shifts to making a "cheap" uke. My experience is that when a laminate uke sounds bad, "laminate top" is the least of its problems:

1. Cheap tuning machines that don't hold or jam
2. Bridge incorrectly installed or compensated
3. Nut incorrectly cut
4. Sharp fret ends protruding beyond the fingerboard
5. Oh yeah, the top is laminate too . . .

It's easy to say, "Laminate ukes are cheap" but that's only half the truth. The worst uke I ever played was a suspiciously cheap solid wood, which if you think about it is perfectly logical. It's much harder to work with solid wood, so the price should reflect that difficulty.

Torres guitar

Here is a link to a reproduction of his guitar with an included sound file.

https://www.gbase.com/gear/david-laplante-torres-paper-mache-replica-2008

The construction is identical to his wooden guitars in terms of bracing and kerfing, but substituting a cardboard-like material called papier-mache for the wooden back and sides. The papier-mache he used is quite different from the kiddie's craft material we used in our grade school craft projects.

This Wikipedia article indicates that papier-mache was a nineteenth century engineered material.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papier-mâché#Europe
It's slightly off topic, but I found this an interesting illustration of the famous Torres experiment.