2013 Makapili Sinker Redwood Pineapple Tenor Ukulele

You can read up a bit on Makapili origins and their builder, Thomas Macomson, in my last post, but suffice to say this is a hot-dog of a uke with a powerful, sparkly, huge voice. It has plenty of power to spare. It's lightly-built along the lines of paper-thin old Kamakas and, tonally, is superbly balanced and full. The body is a "concert size" while the neck is "tenor size" with a 17 1/4" scale length and 15 frets free of the body. This one has a sinker redwood top with mahogany back, sides, and neck. The board appears to be rosewood and the bridge is mahogany. Of course, it's all-solid.

I needed to level/dress the frets and set this up, but otherwise it came in more-or-less "as-new." The original owner had it strung down to DGBE (where it had a nice tone as a "pocket baritone," but I restrung it "per standard" with GCEA, re-entrant, fluorocarbon strings. The action is spot-on at 1/16" at the 12th fret and even with the tenor tension it plays easy-peasy.

The owner upgraded from Grover geared guitar-style tuners to these Gotoh UPT pegs -- sooooo nice. I filled the old screwholes on the rear of the headstock.

Both the nut and saddle seem to be Tusq material.

A soundport means the player has a good idea of what he or she is doing while jamming along with friends...

Just like other Makapilis, this one has a "string-through" mounting.

The bracing is a modified fan-style bracing and has a "transverse" or "angled" main brace with a bass-bar running under it past the soundhole. The lower bout has shorter, very scalloped, fans.

It's a well-built instrument and clearly there was a lot of thought put into getting the most out of the bracing. The top is quite stable despite producing a ton of power.