A fancy Guild from Jason Krekel!!!

I finally got to hang out with Amy and Jason from Mad Tea Party this weekend, it has been way too long! The are from Asheville, NC and play some awesome folky garage rock on ukulele and guitar. I have always known Jason to play a 1960s Silvertone, but on this trip he also had his father's Guild Starfire along. Jason's dad, Tim Krekel, was an amazing songwriter and guitarist from Kentucky. He passed last year and Jason inherited his main guitar. Here is with the Guild.
And here Jason is with the Guild and the Silvertone, both of which were made around 1964-1965, FYI.

Ok, now some pics. Notice the gold plated Bigsby Tremelo and Rotomatic tuners. Also, two single coil pickups and all original hardware, except for a missing finger rest. The whole thing is really awesome maple with a reddish sunburst. The neck is maple/walnut/maple and feels great. People pay the custom shops big bucks nowadays to fake the kind of mojo that Tim put into this guitar, but this is the real deal! Also, check out the two color pearl inlays and celluloid bindings!








It was really special to see Tim's guitar and learn more about him. I think for the next blog post I will feature Jason's silvertone!

Oahu Lap Slide Project!

When I was working on my master's degree, I wrote a thesis project about the Oahu Conservatory of Music, which sold sheet music, lessons and instruments (mostly lap slide guitars) during the depression. They sold most of this stuff through the mail, which helped spread slide guitar all over the world and planted the seeds for dobro, electric lap steel, pedal steel and more. This paper was published in The Fretboard Journal and I also gave a lecture on it at University of Oregon.

Anyway, their cheapest instruments, which were probably made by Kay and Regal, are solid birch and built like tanks. I have owned one of their super fancy mahogany jumbo models but recently sold it. I have one of their electric guitars from the 1950's, but I have been meaning to get one of the cheap ones for an experiment.

First, I got this one off of Ebay for around $50. It had no tuners and several cracks and loose braces. It is OO size with a 24 inch playing scale. The bridge is cast aluminum and the whole thing is birch with a square neck.

Next, I glued up all the cracks, made a bone nut and set it up with the same string set I use for all my electric lap steels. 13-56 nickel strings where I move 2nd to 1st and replace 2nd with an .018 unwound string.

I harvested a single coil pickup, volume knob and tone knob from Leighton's old guitar, got a soldering iron and a book of schematics and went for it!






I put a couple of scraps in the sound hole to mount the pickup. I can use the screw to raise and lower the pickup. I drilled three holes through the top and mounted the rest of the hardware. The tuners came from the project box, and are re-pros of the old three on a plate Kluson tuners.



Lastly, I tuned it up to DADF#AD and gave it a whirl through the amp. It sounds great and puts out about 85% of what my electric does, which is just great. It has more sustain than a reso and less than an electric. Perfect. Also, I am out around $70 for the whole thing!



Oh yeah, I found another bug in the instrument, this time a Japanese beetle. This has happened twice in the last week!

A bug in my ukulele!

I have restored a lot of old instruments over the years, and I often find weird stuff inside of them. Pencils, gum wrapers, beer tops, huge dustballs are the norm. Today I unwrapped an old ukulele for restoration that I got off ebay. I unpacked it, took it downstairs and started working on the bridge and saddle. a few minutes later, what did I see? A box elder bug crawling through the soundhole! Its not from here, because its winter in Colorado so its pretty much bugless. what a shock!

Re-built Soprano Uke- Chicago made?

Here is a soprano ukulele most likely made in Chicago in the 1920's. It is made of a beautiful flamed mahogany with a new walnut bridge and fingerboard. It has checkered rope binding and a mahogany neck with new tuners and aquila strings.


Here is the deal: I bought this uke in pieces and it needed major work. I essentially re-built it from the inside out. It has a great sparkly vintage sound but with modern playability and nice sustain and volume for such a small body. When you look close you will see the evidence of all the small repairs needed to get this uke solid again. Despite these small aesthetic issues, the uke is rock solid and a dependable player.


Here is what I did:
-repaired and patched back and front cracks
-re-braced the entire instrument with cedar bracing and added a cedar bridge patch
-added new kerfed linings
-patched small holes and gaps with mahogany and did my best to keep as much old binding as possible
-pulled the old frets and added a mahogany veneer to the neck to make it straight
-added new walnut fingerboard, bridge, saddle and nut
-new tuners and strings
-re-finished with a light oil finish


It's on ebay

Cigar Box Ukulele

I got a cigar box from my Grandfather that came out of his attic.



It is a "Havana Seconds" cigar box made of solid cedar. It is sometime before WWII, I imagine. I thinned the original top, braced it, inlayed a simple walnut rosette and built a maple/walnut neck, bridge and fingerboard.




It took me four tries to glue the neck on! It turns it the cedar panel I was gluing it to was too soft and flexible to take the butt joint. Instead I replaced the pannel with a piece of cherry with a nice big mahogany heel block. I then sunk two bolts through it into the neck and its solid as a rock!


I put a fret wire saddle, bone nut, gotoh friction tuners and aquila strings. I tuned it up to D tuning and it sounds great. Decent tone and volume for a small box.


Also, I built it with a scale that is one fret short of normal soprano scale and 13 frets. It will be for sale at the Denver Uke Fest and then on Ebay if needed.