An 8-string tenor ukulele

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mooshalah
Myrtle
Posts: 92
Joined: Tue Feb 01, 2011 2:08 am
Location: Emerald, Victoria

An 8-string tenor ukulele

Post by mooshalah » Sun Jan 15, 2017 3:20 pm

This is the fourth of of six sets of photographs that I'm posting, with regard to a number of ukuleles I've made recently.

Some forum members (with an interest in such things!) might recall that I asked a question regarding the advisability of "changing horses in mid-stream", and turning a standard tenor ukulele that I was making into an 8-string instrument. I received a number of replies - thank you, all - and decided to just do it.

The soundboard is of very, very stiff Blackwood, so I don't feel any anxiety about having loaded it up with extra forces. I had left a bit of extra meat on the neck, so when it came time to carve it to shape and size, I had no problems. Because I didn't want to crowd the bridge with bridge-pins, I took a leaf out of Allen's book, and have used a hard bridge-late, and tied the end of each string onto a glass bead of appropriate size (around 4mm diameter, I think).

Other attributes include:

Blackwood bindings;
Satin Box back and sides;
Queensland Rose Mahogany neck;
Ebony fingerboard;
Finished with Rustins Danish Oil;
An (I hope) art deco look to the headstock and bridge. It's hard to elegantly fit 8 machine-heads into what needs to be a reasonably small space;
Snakewood buttons on the tuners (and the spacing is a little tight; might be a bit hard for someone with big fingers)!

The sound is exactly as I wanted and expected; shimmery and full, a bit like a charango, and not at all ukulele-like (unless you already know what an 8-string ukulele sounds like, in which case it sounds exactly like one)!

Frank.
8-string A.jpg
8-string B.jpg
8-string C.jpg
8-string D.jpg
8-string E.jpg
8-string F.jpg

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