c.1925 Aloha Fancy Koa Ukulele

This is number 8 of 8 ukes I've been working on for a customer. This one shares the same Aloha branding as the 7th uke which means it was made by the Aloha Manufacturing Company. It's a pretty little thing and sports oodles of rope inlay as binding, stripes, and endstrips. This all looks very attractive, especially with the super-cool oddball headstock shape.

Work included crack repairs, fret level/dressing, bridge shave and reglue, new (vintage) pegs, and setup. It, of course, sounds great! Chimey and sweet.

The top had several cracks and needed some reinforcing (it was cut fairly thin) so I installed a plate-style brace below the soundhole to shore up the damaged area (looks like a bridge plate, but I use cedar or spruce to lighten up the weight).

Oh, and yes, check out all that lovely inlay and binding!

The inlaid bit down the neck is very cool.

I had to slightly reposition the bridge (as well as cut it down a hair) for proper intonation and action height.

The ivoroid-buttoned pegs are from my parts bin and are period-correct. The desire for these ukes was to mostly try and use wood pegs if available, but due to the way the tuner holes were cut on this particular instrument, it meant that the button sizes on wood pegs would collide when turned together. These friction pegs solved that problem and also give the uke an upscale look.

Uh, huh! Hubba hubba on that endstrip!