1950s Kamaka Gold Label Koa Soprano Ukulele

There's not much to say about Kamaka ukes because they're basically the best. I'm biased, though. I'm a huge fan of the sweet, bright, loud, chipper, "island tone" of these old ukes and this one has "that tone" in full. My favorite Kamakas were built from the '50s through the '70s, though, really, all eras are excellent.

This one has fairly straight-grain koa throughout but it's a lovely golden-orange color, as you'd expect. It's got the old "no fretboard" design which goes right back to the '20s ukes and has the vintage-style, "slotted-down" saddle/bridge configuration.

Work was light-ish -- I cleated some cracks, seated and leveled/dressed the frets, and adjusted the bridge profile and setup to bring action to a spot-on 1/16" at the 12th fret. It's all original save for slight modification to the bridge and some recent Waverly (StewMac-sold) friction pegs that had been installed.

My last job was to fit a clear pickguard to the upper bout and I took a couple snapshots of that which I'll post later.