Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

I got this piece of Paduk in an OLF Swap meet from a couple years ago as part of RC Tonewoods orphan back sale. Just happens to fit the bill for a tenor uke.

First time using this wood, and the colour when freshly milled is a very vibrant red orange. It will oxidise to a dark brown if left in the sun, so a finish with some UV protection is required to keep the red. It's not particularly easy to work with, and the red will bleed into anything close to it, so a lot of work trying to keep the maple bindings white, as well as the spruce.

Also the pores in this wood are absolutely enormous. Three filling sessions left it looking like it could use a couple of more, so it got a satin finish rather than gloss, which I think suits this combo better anyway.

Body - Paduk
Top - Bearclaw Sitka Spruce
Neck - Spanish Cedar
Fret Board - Ebony
Bridge - Ebony
Rosette - Paduk and Spalted Maple
Bindings - Maple
Finish - Mirotone 3220 satin gloss over Boat Coat Epoxy
Tuners - Grover
Strings - D'Addario Titanium

Great work as always, not sure I'm overly taken with the Padauk, more a brown 'earthy' wood type of guy myself but it's going to be loved by others I'm sure.
What are the bridge pins made from, looks abit like those fosilized walrusy ones LMI used to sell? Nice colour they don't stand out like stark white ones would.

Boxwood pins from Gurian. I like them because they are a really good colour match to spruce.

Hi Allan, I am liking your Art Deco look of these instruments very cool mate.
Have you considered a resophonic instrument with similar Deco style?

It's on the list of to do things before I die Luke.

I know just what you mean about Padauk bleeding and the size of the pores. The dust gets everywhere, i've been using it for bridges and fretboareds for a while. This guitar i'm building now is Padauk and i've missed a few pores. Very nice uke by the way.
Wayne

Damn that's a lot of red!

Nice work Al.

Padauk is really cheap and really, really nice tonewood and I reckon it's definitely worth the effort.

Your workshop'll look like a paprika factory for a few weeks tho

Regards.

Just another very classy ukulele Allen!
Nice to see Padouk with sapwood. Maybe it is because Padouk still is readily available that one can not find too many "sapwooded" sets on the market (I have one or two of those in my stash ).

Beautiful uke Allen!!
Is it my imagination or is that a smallish body for a tenor?

The lower bout is just a bit narrow than my norm as the sides that I had were just that hair too short. But other than that fit's in my tenor case with a press fit.

Allen wrote:The lower bout is just a bit narrow than my norm as the sides that I had were just that hair too short. But other than that fit's in my tenor case with a press fit.

Mike's eyeballs are graduated in thousandths of an inch Allen Well picked up Mike!

Allen, you do turn out some beautiful ukes.

The Uke Master strikes again !!!
Stunning Uke Allen, The combo of woods is great !!!
this is when i get annoyed that I vowed to only use Natives !!!
I use Boxwood pins too Love them.
and might I add great photos too mate !!!

Cheers,
Christian.

Thanks everyone.

The photos are an attempt at getting consistency across my gallery, and not having to worry about what the weather is doing outside, and all those reflections on too shiny a surface. Big learning curve though.

Allen wrote:The photos are an attempt at getting consistency across my gallery, and not having to worry about what the weather is doing outside,

That sounds like your outdoor ukulele photos are collectibles now!

Well, we do have a new feature in the back yard. Waterfall, stream, large boulders etc. Looks like something out of the rainforest, so perhaps we'll do some limited edition photo shoots there when the plants get established.

Sounds great!

And again...

Nice work Allen.

Despite the colour being too intense for some, I agree that it has good potential tonally - Paduak has a great tap tone. Red, particularly vibrant red, can be a difficult colour to work with - matching timbers, bindings, fretboards etc can be problematic. Not to mention your comment on colour bleeding...

I have not built a guitar with it before, but have used it for a Xylophone I made. It really did ring beautifully in that form. It oxidised to a very deep purplish brown which really suited the Xylophone.

I was going to mention the shape variance too, but then read that it was picked up by another. It is a quite evident difference to me but probably only because this gallery is heavily populated with your regular size Tenors !!

One question - any reason for the Boat Coat Epoxy shift? Just easily available for you or for another purpose? UV perhaps?

Oh, and nice photos of these three by the way.

Jeremy.

Turns out that the people who have taken over the WEST Systems distribution have told their network that they need to be moving a lot more of their product. And orders need to go up exponentially. The people I was getting it from moved in a year what the new people want to see them move at a minimum in one month. So it's no longer available locally.

I did a lot of research to find a suitable alternative, and settled on the Boat Coat brand. I was going to give a review of it after using it some more, but to date it's very good to use. Made in Australia and should be easy to source for most of us.