Wood: Ancient New Zealand Kauri Wood, Old Growth Redwood & Andrew Jackson Hermitage Estate Maple This concert size redwood top ukulele has an impressive spark to its sound. It is bright,loud and lively. With great playing action and intonation it is a true players instrument but wait, it doesn't stop there.

The wood that I constructed this instrument out of is its real special feature. A while back I had read in a wood magazine about some Kauri wood that a crew had unearthed in a New Zealand peat bog that dated back 30,000 to 50,000 years ago. A grove of Kauri trees (which currently is a species which still grows in New Zealand) sunk in a peat bog and had preserved in a unique set of enviornmental conditions since before the last ice age. The wood that is being salvaged today is fully workable, sandable, bendable and finishable. The only difference I notice working with it is that it has no noticeable wood smell. After reading the article about this wood I wrote to and arranged to procure enough Kauri to build a couple of instruments with. Incidentally, the age of this wood was determined by several scientists using radio-carbon dating.

Making the back and sides of the ukulele with this ancient Kauri wood I used a piece of old growth redwood which came from an old house tear down for the soundboard. For the neck I used a piece of maple which was 1998 hurricane windfall from Andrew Jacksons Tennessee Hermitage Estate (from Eco Timber in Oakland Ca.) and to finish off the ancient theme, I inlaid a stylized Hawaiian petraglyph of an ancient surfer guy into the peghead of the instrument. His surfboard is inlaid in Mother of Pearl.