1950s Mastro TV Pal Plastic Soprano Ukulele

Most of the TV Pal ukes I've seen haven't featured this cool "Twizzler-bowling-ball" color on the whole body, so this was a neat little thing to come across. Aside from some chemical mucking-about on the top, it also found its way here in fairly good order, too. Tone-wise it's a bit quieter than some of the "truly rocking" old plastic ukes (mostly Islanders), but certainly happy-go-lucky in a mellow way.

My only work on it was to replace the broken plastic pegs with "normal" older friction pegs, string it up with fluorocarbon strings, and give it a light setup. The neck, as usual, is a little funky and so I did level the frets a bit, too. The saddle height is just a hair low and so the setup on it suits chordal strumming but not aggressive fingerpicking. I'd have to do some funky surgery to the saddle area to raise it, so "good enough is good enough," for this job.

You know, though? It's a plastic uke and for all the years it's been around, I have to say I'm always somewhat impressed the makers of these things pulled what they did out of them. Looks-wise, they're also pretty hip and our youngest (almost 4, now) has claimed this for herself.