1960s Kamaka Tenor Ukulele

My love for Kamaka ukes cannot be denied. It's pretty rare to encounter tenors, though, so it was nice to chat with this uke's owner and give it a test-run after setting it up for him. It, of course, sounds excellent. Unlike the sparkly, sweet soprano Kamakas and the chimey, clear-toned concerts, this tenor has a more "robust" sound due to the scale and increased tension and to my ears it's closer to the darker, velvet voice of a mainland Martin -- but with plenty of that Kamaka breeze thrown-in.

In person, one can see plenty of strum-wear evidence and signs that this uke was enjoyed for many years. It has a "relaxed" feeling about it.

The pin bridge is pretty neat. I had to take the saddle down quite a bit and so added string-ramping behind the saddle to apply good back-tension on it and so drive the top better.

I can already sense the owner scheming about putting Gotoh UPTs on this.

The stripey, straight-grain koa of the sides is interesting, no?

Overall, a great uke. I wish I'd grabbed a soundclip of it!