Electric Ukulele Teardrop model in Ash and maple

[michael j king]

It was nice to be asked to make an Electric Ukulele again, not made one for years! My normal day job is making Lyres, harps and Kanteles so this is a nice relief, The neck was made around 2003 from my original batch and has a standard martin soprano scale( I normally use Stewmac mandolin fingerboards these days).
Body is 23cm wide, 40mm deep.
English Ash for the body, 4 piece, maple neck with walnut stripe. Telecaster pickup, single volume. The bridge was made from aluminium section, pick guard 2mm black plastic, No truss rod as such on these, I insert a carbon rod on the tenor neck version but not on this one, doesn't need it! I have some videos now on youtube to demonstrate this instrument, not sure If I can post them here, I also have a short simple one from my customer?

I have some in progress shots and will get around to writing up the construction blog soon on my website.

[michael j king]

Nearly forgot the back shot, I used string through ferrules on this one.

[michael j king]

Tru-oil body finish on the ash and neck with the body grain filled with Rustins oak grain filler before sanding and oil fnishing.

[Gary Gill]

Very nice work. Please tell us about the pick up.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

Very cool. If Brian Jones of the Stones had played the ukulele, it might have looked like that.

[michael j king]

Most of the parts for this were bought from Stewmac 8 years ago, So the telecaster pickup is from them, It had been in a drawer and was scratched quite a bit but this was made quickly on a budget for someone. I shielded the cavities with copper foil tape and the pick-guard too making sure the pickup cover was grounded to the pot and not touching the other shielding.


I designed this uke as a school project in 1985/6, very much Vox/Brian Jones inspired with a dash of telecaster I am sure!
Made them commercially for a few years (2003-5) then stopped making them as there was little demand and they were not cheap to make, Now Vox have their own electric ukes that are not a million miles away from this!

[John Kingma]

Very cool. I like that.

My grandson wants me to build him a guitar but he's still pretty small. I should build him something like this instead.

[michael j king]

A Ukulele is a good grounding for learning the guitar, though a bullet proof acoustic model is too be recommended, My My first Son when he was 3 year old(18 now) had a hand made soprano acoustic. Had is the operative word! My other children had stick Dulcimers, one of which survived. There is something to be said for those plywood mahalo Ukuleles!! lol

If you want to make a small electric like this go for a lightest piece of wood you can find, They are small but quite heavy for their size