1920s British-made Windsor Whirle Banjo Ukulele

This Windsor Whirle ("Whirlie") is a great-looking uke and would've probably been fairly up the food-chain when it was made. Testament to this are the soft, integral arm rest, gold-plated hardware, and nice fittings. It's an 8" rim which puts it solidly in the realm of "professional size" jo-ukes, though the scale is standard 13" soprano which lets it tune from standard GCEA up to ADF#B without trouble. The neck is very slender and fast (like a modern uke) which lets all those closed-position sliding chords "get done" nice and easy.

Work included a refret, cleaning, new bridge, new nut, and general setup with Martin fluoro strings. It plays spot-on and is in good health. I also modified the neck-to-pot join method which added better rigidity and stability there.

All the hardware is original save the new frets, bridge, and nut. The skin head is holding-up well and has a good sound. This is a loud and proud uke and sounds best (to my ears) when played at "stage" or "group" volume -- not worrying about not trying to make noise on it.

Isn't the Whirle plate nice?

I refretted with modern medium/narrow stock which gives this a deluxe sort of feel. The neck's fretboard had been sanded-down incorrectly at the factory which added some backbow at the 1-5 fret positions. I dialed this mostly out and then seated the frets to remove any other deviation. Therefore, the uke plays with a "nice straight neck." It's a fast one, too, with the slender maple neck under that (ebony?) board.

Pearl dots are inlaid.

I used a nice 3-foot all-maple bridge.

The rim and resonator are veneer with fancy birdseye/figured maple and finished in a "golden natural" tint.

Pretty nice, huh?

The original friction tuners are still doing their job. They were gold-plated, too, but the plating has obviously worn off the buttons. An interesting note on this tuner design, though, is that they adjust with little hex-shaped nuts rather than set-screws. Waaaaay less prone to stripping-out...

The nice rounded-off heel reminds me of Buckbee banjos and some Langes from the teens.

The routed-out soundports are classy-as-heck!

I stuffed a tiny bit of muting material under the armrest to dampen overtones on the head just slightly. It helps when one plays all-out.

The strings are mounted straight through the tension hoop -- a design I like as it means tailpiece rattle is never an issue -- leaving a clean look.

I normally am not into gold hardware, but I really can't complain at all about the aged look this hardware has taken on. It's classy instead of bling.

Before mating up the neck back with the rim, I converted the lower of its two mounting screws into a hanger-bolt/big hex-nut setup. Add a big washer and -- hey presto -- neck stability is increased a thousand-fold.

There's no "tonering" on this jo-uke, but the top edge of the rim is rounded-over a bit. Note that, like many British banjos, there's no "dowel stick" reinforcement through the rim. The integral resonator on the back adds that stiffness instead.