Once or twice a year a customer asks me to build using their wood. For many reasons, I usually say no, but for this project I said yes. This is a special gift from our customer to his 84 year old father who lives in Puerto Rico. His father had a Tamarind tree in his backyard while growing up and he holds special memories of playing around the tree and eating its fruit. Tamarind is a food crop tree that has spread all around the world in tropical climates. It is often harvested off the forest floor, which allows fungus to grow, making the spalted colors you see. Since I already use a lot of sustainable orchard trees, this seemed to fit my values. I chose a Yellow Cedar top and neck that we harvested off the beach at Camp Westwind in Oregon. It drifted down from Canada and also is spalted. For the fretboard, I thought I should choose another wood that evokes travel and migration, so I made the fretboard from Teak! Teak is an expensive hardwood from Asia that is prized by boat builders. I would never buy it normally, but I found some when cleaning out a corner of the Carpenter Ant stash in Portland. It is dense, stiff and naturally oily. Perfect for fretboards. I’m fact, after my Texas Ebony runs out, this will likely be my dark brown fretboard wood, so stay tuned. Overall I am really pleased with the aesthetics, the sound and the spirit of this uke. I’m honored to be a part of a project like this!

(BTW I accidentally said “bridge” when I meant to say “fretboard” when discussing the Teak on the video. Oops!)