2014 Covered Bridge Redwood/Walnut Concert Ukulele

Redwood is becoming increasingly-common on boutique instruments out of the Pacific Northwest, so it's not too much of a surprise to see it gracing the top of this Oregon-made concert uke. It's a nice tonewood choice, too -- it's vaguely cedar-like in character (warm/sweet) but with a bit more of the definition and sustain you might expect from spruce.

The back and sides of this little beaut are equally interesting, too, as they're made from black walnut with a good amount of figure in it. Walnut tends to sound a lot like mahogany to my ears... but with perhaps a slightly darker tone. The binding is figured maple, the fretboard and bridge are ebony, and to top it off it's got geared, 4:1 tuners at the headstock. This was clearly built to be upscale from the beginning.

A customer of mine sent this over for consignment and after just a bit of tweaking to the setup and some light cleaning, it's ready-to-go. Condition-wise, it's near-new with just a few traces of use. It looks like it could still be something awaiting an owner at a fancy uke shop. Its voice is sweet and full and it responds beautifully to articulate picking. Action is set spot-on at 1/16" at the 12th fret and it appears to be strung with fluorocarbon strings.

This has an average-size concert body at 8" across the lower bout, though its 3 1/8" depth makes it feel pretty substantial in the hands. The scale is 14 7/8" and it has a wide-ish 1 9/16" nut width. The board is flat and the neck has a medium-to-larger D-shaped profile.

The nut is bone. The finish is satin.

Nice walnut, huh?

Maple binding is always a pain to install and/or replace. It looks excellent against the walnut.

The pickup appears to either be a K&K or a similar design. It's decently-hot and sounds great.

A good, hard case comes with it, too.