1940s Ka-Lae/Kamaka Monkeypod Pineapple Ukulele

The story about Ka-Lai and (later) Ka-Lae pineapple ukuleles is mixed with truth and fable. The two names behind it are Kamaka (the maker) and John Lai (the teacher and retailer who owned Metronome Music). The Ka-Lai label was used first and then changed in the early '40s (per internet rumor) to Ka-Lae "because it sounds more Hawaiian." Fair enough. Kamaka's own history says that Johnny Lai would come into the workshop after hours in the and on weekends in the '40s to build the Ka-Lae ukes, rather than have Kamaka make them. That might certainly be true, because the earlier Ka-Lais seem to be just rebranded Kamaka models while the later Ka-Lae ones seem to be like this one -- from the front a typical, budget-friendly Kamaka but from the side just a bit different.

This uke is made from solid monkeypod wood (rather than koa -- and it says so on the stamp inside) and its neck and sides are all one piece. This gives a graceful look to the instrument and makes it inherently pretty strong, though a bit heavier than your average soprano as the sides seem to be from 1/8" to 1/4" thick. It sounds like a period Kamaka, though, with that bright, crisp, and lullaby-shimmery Island sound. Because of the larger soundbox it's less dry and flat-sounding than the typical earlier, peanut-style Hawaiian ukes and has a bit more volume, too.

It did come to me with condition issues, however. It's crack-free but the neck certainly does have an easily-visible twist and because the sides and neck are one piece, it's not like I could reset the neck to adjust action on it. I've dealt with both of these problems numerous times on earlier, 1910s-1920s Hawaiian ukes (they almost all have some twist or warp in the neck or at least terrible fretting), though, so I have my ways to get around these troubles. The twist in the neck was eliminated from playing concerns by popping-up all the original brass frets and then setting them back down (with wicked-in glue in the slots) in such a way that for each string the path along the top of the frets was straight. I then leveled and dressed the frets.

At the bridge, I had to shave it down a ton. It was a non-original, 1950s-style Harmony bridge, though, anyhow. I then drilled string-mounting, through-top holes and slotted it for a fret-saddle and aligned the height of the fret saddle to match the twist in the neck. This gives the uke perfect 1/16" action overall at the 12th fret and if you didn't know the twist was in the neck, you wouldn't know it was there unless you were looking for it. Notes fret clean and easy and it's in-tune up and down the board.

Like almost all non-fretboarded ukes from the period, the strings are low on the body and this is a style that will suit strummers but most modern fingerpickers will scoff at it because they're used to more clearance from 1/8" thick fretboards. As you can hear in the clip, I don't have a problem with this style, but then again I cut my uke-teeth on vintage Hawaiian peanut ukes so I'm very used to it.

Specs are: 13 1/2" scale length, 1 7/16" nut width, 1 3/16" string spacing at the nut, 1 11/16" spacing at the bridge, 1/16" action at the 12th fret with a mild-medium D-shaped neck profile and flat fretboard, 6 3/8" lower bout width, and 2 7/16" depth at the endblock.

Even though it's plain, it's a lovely little thing, isn't it?

It has its original wood pegs and nut. The pegs work like violin friction pegs so for the average player, this is interpreted as fussy. They work fine, though, and don't slip when you're tuning-up correctly and gently pressing into the back of the headstock as you tune-up.

It hurts my head to remove them when they're original, but if I owned this uke and was playing it daily, I'd probably switch these to Gotoh UPT machines anyhow.

There's wear and tear to the fretboard's top and side of the neck in the way of scraped/rubbed-off finish. It's not detrimental in any way, though.

I forgot to mention that I also added side dots at frets 5 and 7 for easier reference.

Because the bridge is so low, I had to through-string the mounting of the strings. The idea here is that you stick the string into the hole, pull it up through the soundhole and knot it up into a ball, and then pull it up snug against the bridge plate and then up to the tuner. It's the most stable way to string a uke but the extra chore of pulling it out the soundhole means string changes take just a little longer.

Isn't it cool to see the grain in the neck run right through to the sides?

Here you can see the minor twist in the neck when sighting-down the fretboard.