15 April 2025
Corresponding in size to the tenor ukulele, the Uke has a scale length of 39 cm. It is built like an acoustic archtop guitar, with parallel bracing and handcrafted arched top and back. The one-piece bridge provides a very direct transmission of string vibration to the body. The Uke is amplified by a single-coil pickup made by Coil Tec.
Luthier "James R. DeCava" was born and raised in Stratford, Connecticut. As a young teenager, he began playing guitar and banjo and soon realized that if something needed repair on his instruments, he had to do it himself as there were few repair people around at that time. He began meeting others with similar interests and came into contact with the well known Liberty Banjo Co. He worked for them for many years making banjos, doing repairs, and cutting-inlaying mother of pearl with intricate designs. Over the years, he has built hundreds of guitars, banjos, mandolins, and one-of-a-kind instruments. He has also become well known for building multi-string instruments.
Bill Collings and his team of skilled luthiers build custom handmade acoustic and electric guitars, mandolins, and ukuleles in Austin, Texas. Over the past 35 years, Collings Guitars has set the standard for quality, tone, and playability amidst a number of fine guitar companies and independent builders. In a low production environment, Bill Collings has created a culture that lives and breathes attention to detail. Collings’ reputation for quality construction and consistency is internationally known, and has earned the patronage of some of the world’s most accomplished artists and performers.
John D’Angelico was born in Little Italy, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. At only 9 years old, he became an apprentice to his grand uncle Signor Ciani, an expert violin and mandolin maker. This apprenticeship would become the basis for construction principles he later incorporated into his world-renowned archtop guitars.
A “small shop” instrument builder and currently building acoustic and electric mandolin family instruments, electric ukuleles and other random custom instruments. A while back a customer emailed me and wanted to talk to me about building an electric steel string Uke…this worked out quite well since the electric mandolins I build are very similar in size, scale to the Ukulele.
Saul Koll grew up in southern California just north of Los Angeles in a town called Newhall. He always had an interest in how things were made and what made things work. While other kids were playing sports, Saul was in the garage taking expensive toys apart and gluing the components into new weird new contraptions. At 12 he started to play the guitar and his compulsive tendencies were then directed to learning the instrument. It was about this time that he found a book on guitar making at the library in Redondo Beach. It was Classic Guitar Construction by Irving Sloan. One of the earliest writings on the subject and as it turns out eventually very influential.(Notice how even at the beach, Saul was at the library!) Saul found the book intriguing but beyond his skills at age 12. He continued his guitar studies and school and all the usual teenage stuff.
In 1992, Qian Ni, who had come to the United States from China to study music, founded Eastman Strings. In the beginning, he and his two musician colleagues bought instruments from Western-trained violin makers from their home town in China, but before long, they saw that a different approach was needed.
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