Tenor Ukulele Siblings

This time things turned out differently.

As I was routing the pickup cavities I made a terrible mistake and mis-registered the template. I routed a cavity directly under the location of the bridge. Imagine my horror when I removed the template and revealed my error.

I went ahead and dutifully routed the other body with a feeling of shame and dread in my heart.

Two months passed with me in denial, desperately thinking that there must be a way to redeem the situation and save the first body.

The neck had already been fitted into the neck pocket. An exquisite book matched Quilted maple cap had already been trimmed with purfling and maple binding. The thought of throwing away all the work and these beautiful materials was almost too much to bear. I managed to find some of the scrap wood from the quilted cap and tried patching the mis-routed cavity. Needless to say the results were not invisible. Hideous actually.

Still I lingered with thoughts of redemption. Then, it came to me. A flip up mute would eclipse the unsightly patch seam of the mis-rout.

Perfect. A dirty little secret hidden by a utilitarian accoutrement. It makes perfect sense for an electric uke as well. The occasional pizzicato passage is quite common in the ukulele repertoire. I studied the Fender jaguar flip up mute and converted the design to my needs. I nickel plated the machined brass parts I made and tested them out.

I am now ready to offer this feature on all my electric Ukes when desired.

I told my client the story and said he could take either Uke or have them both. I mentioned that I consider them sister pieces. He responded that they would live out the rest of their days under the same roof.

I have quickly moved on to other commissions to quell my separation anxiety. I do love a happy ending though.