Tahitian Ukulele

[David Smith]

Several years ago I heard a Polynesian woman play a Tahitian Uke and I was amazed at the interesting sound. The traditional way of building the instrument is to carve the body, neck and head from a single piece of wood, then hollow round depression in the body and add a thin soundboard. I didn't have such a large chunk of wood, so I designed a similar instrument using several pieces of 3/4" boards. I used inexpensive mandolin tuners for the 8 doubled strings and to give the instrument its wounderful twangy sound I used 30 pound nylon monofilament fish line on all strings just like the Tahitian's use. The Tahitian's tune it G-C-E-A, just like a modern uke and the string length is similar to a tenor uke. The sound is wonderful and very unique.

The body, neck and head are made from 3/4" thick mahogany.
The body has an extra 3/4" board to increase the thickness of the body to 1 1/2"

The 3/4" front of the body has a large hole cut into it and is thne glued to the solid 3/4" back. Then using a large hole cutter, the bottom is cut out to within 1/4" of the back.

The finished instrument with 1/8" spruce soundboard and 1/8" hardwood fingerboard added.

[Jason Rodgers]

That's too fun! I've played an instrument just like that. It was a souvenir from the Cook islands, and even had fluorescent green fishing line strings. I've drawn up plans for an instrument based on this concept, but it's about number 46 on the to-do list.

[Dan Warren]

Man, these little things are cool. I have a set of cheap mando tuners from Stew-mac and was thinking of doing something like this. I have a few questions:
1) What's the diameter of your soundboard?
2) Is there any bracing on the back of it?
3) Is it glued in or just held in place by the bridge?
4) Did you use any neck reinforcement?

[David Smith]

Man, these little things are cool. I have a set of cheap mando tuners from Stew-mac and was thinking of doing something like this. I have a few questions:
1) What's the diameter of your soundboard? 6"
2) Is there any bracing on the back of it? No bracing, just a plain circle of 1/8" spruce.
3) Is it glued in or just held in place by the bridge? The soundboard is glued to a ledge that is recessed into the body hole.
4) Did you use any neck reinforcement? No reinforcement. If you look at the first photo you will see that the neck and middle of the body are a single piece of wood

[Dan Warren]

Thanks for the specs. I'll get to work...

[Rob Dick]

Hi Dave

Great little uke. What's the tone and sound projection like compared to a "normal" tenor?

[David Smith]

Hi Dave

Great little uke. What's the tone and sound projection like compared to a "normal" tenor?

Bright, "tinny", and sort of "old timey" with more volume than you would expect from such a small soundboard. It has a very noticable sound that stands out. The Polynesian islanders play it with a pick and an extremely fast strum. If you search YouTube under "Tahitian Ukulele" you will get an idea of the sound.

[Rob Dick]

Thanks David!

I've seen them on YouTube and you're right, it a very trebly sound played almost like a double chop on a mandolin. Jai Laga'aia who is one of our Aussie imports from New Zealand (but his family comes from Samoa) plays one with a normal ukulele strum on a YouTube track "My Ukulele" and it sounded nice, but he was backed by his brothers' band which included a tenor uke and guitar as well so I wasn't sure how much of the sound was him and how much was the other instruments.

I've started a basic one using basically scrap timber and some 4mm plywood (sanded off one of the plys so it's about 2.5mm) and we'll see how it sounds. If that one works then I might buy a spruce top set from Stewmac to make another one with a better soundboard! Thanks again for sharing the info!

[Steve Senseney]

I built one, using scrap pieces of spruce. Since these are simple instruments, if you don't have fancy spruce, I would suggest using any kind of pine that you have available.

[Rob Dick]

Thanks Steve. The body is an offcut of CCA treated garden edging timber cut to a Les Paul body shape, so it's definitely not an upmarket instrument!
If this one turns out to be ok'ish I'll include a spruce top set in my next Stewmac order, so for around $20 I'll have enough to make a better uke as well as (I'm thinking) a campfire mando built along the same lines!

[Steve Senseney]

CCA treated lumber is a carcinogen.

I don't think you should make an instrument with this material.

[Rob Dick]

It's legal here in Australia and the chemical mix has been changed... but we still refer to is as CCA treated or "Permapine".

[Steve Senseney]

Thanks for the clarification. I don't even like having treated lumber around my place.

[Rob Dick]

I can see why they sometimes refer to them as Tahitian Banjos... it's a very plunky sound! It'll actually be a handy thing to have about the place when my daughter complains if I play guitar or uke after she's gone to bed.

[Rob Dick]

It is interesting just how much sound is soaked up when the soundhole is up against one's portly tummy! I might have to rig up a toneguard type of effort to hold the uke away from my body. For a 6" diameter plywood soundboard and cheap soprano uke strings on tenor scale length it's not bad though.

[Steve Senseney]

Being cheap, and trying to be traditional, I used 30, 40 and 50 pound fishing line for the strings.

These probably cost more than the regular uke strings would have cost.

[Rob Dick]

I was reading that the "traditional" ones use 30lb fishing line, ideally bright green! I guess with no tone caps to discuss there's really only what colour and brand of fishing line to argue over!

[Jason Rodgers]

It is interesting just how much sound is soaked up when the soundhole is up against one's portly tummy! I might have to rig up a toneguard type of effort to hold the uke away from my body. For a 6" diameter plywood soundboard and cheap soprano uke strings on tenor scale length it's not bad though.

Maybe a reflector, like on a banjo. Just a 1/8"-1/4" disc of plywood held off the back with spacers.

[Bill Bell]

I built one of these a couple of years ago after visiting Kauai and seeing one for the first time. It was difficult to find much construction info on-line but managed to scrounge enough. The cavity behind the soundboard is conical in shape, going from 6" or so in the front to 2" or so in the back, I don't know if it sounds any different than the flat bottomed cavity in the pic but that was the conical shape is the info I found. I found info about the strings to be all over the place, what finally worked was actually 12- 17lb line. The tuning is similar to a standard Uke but the E is tuned an octave higher. Very simple to build and they sound great.