For the DIY folks building your own ukulele.
27 March 2024
Inspiration came in the Spring of 2004 when Bill (aka Papa,) with twin boys in tow, attended the first ever Cigar Box Festival in Northern Kentucky. He was amazed at the look and sound of guitars that were fabricated from simple cigar boxes. As a woodworker he knew he had the familiarity and aptitude with wood, and the passion for music to craft something real. And so it began. The genesis of Papa’s Boxes started with a simple soprano ukulele. Papa’s Boxes attended the NYC Ukulele Festival as a vendor for the first time with one simple “build it yourself” uke kit. By 2006, one of Papa’s Boxes ukuleles had been inducted into the National Cigar Box Guitar Museum. Many of our first instruments didn’t have a clear classification such as banjo, mandolin, guitar, etc. But over the course of several years and through a ton of trial and error, our growing crew at Papa’s Boxes honed and reworked the designs and began to master specific instruments. This year has ushered in an even more interesting and diverse assortment of instruments from sopranos, concerts, tenors, and baritones in the Papa’s Boxes ukulele quiver.
Since our inception in 1983, Grizzly Industrial®, Inc. has grown into one of the largest machinery companies in the United States. Our products can be found in all sizes of shops from the large industrial production users to the smaller cabinet and machine shops. We have the widest product selection under one brand in the world and we sell direct to the user, cutting out the dealer network, and resulting in lower prices to you. We ship 99% of all orders the same day and with over a million square feet of warehouse space packed with inventory in three strategic locations around the country, your order can get to you within a few days.
A prophetic photograph of me age 4 used to form the background, Bowman style, to my labels. Clutching my plastic Woolworth‘s ukulele, standing in the tartan kilt of my mother’s Scottish clan, in front of the wall my dad built, is a constant reminder that I really was born to do this job! My whole philosophy is one of care in the selection of materials and attention to detail. I learned these qualities from my toolmaker father whose exacting eye taught me to take notice of the small things. I remember when our neighbors painted their houses; it took a couple of days with a gallon can of Dulux. It always needed re-doing a couple of years later. Dad took a week applying 3 coats of Mangers lead based oil paint over 2 coats of red lead primer. He only did it once. It lasted years.
We are a home grown family business dedicated to providing quality performance ukuleles at a great price. Our small company started because we love the ukulele and always enjoy meeting others who feel the same way. If you choose to buy from us, you will be buying from people who play ukulele for fun on a daily basis We take time setting up each uke to make sure you will be satisfied with your purchase.
Stewart-MacDonald has the hard-to-find tools, parts, and supplies needed by builders and repair shops. With our staff of experienced luthiers, we also design and manufacture tools specifically for the needs of professional instrument makers and repair shops. Our manufacturing shop here in Ohio also creates instrument kits of particularly high quality. With woods selected and machined for accurate fit, these kits give you the materials needed to create heirloom-quality instruments.
The company’s founder and instrument designer, Wolfgang Kater, began building guitars at the age of 12, and soon branched out to lutes, viola da gambas and other small, historical keyboard instruments. At the inquisitive age of six he had apprenticed an elderly gentleman who taught him cabinet-making, machining, and the use and fabrication of tools. The Wolfelele ukeleles are the results of the combination of the precision required for each of these trades, his natural artistic abilities, and his engineering mind.
.jpg)