Built by Hand in
since 2009
upcoming FESTIVALS
2021 Reno Ukulele Festival
Nugget Casino Resort
Sparks, NV
September 29 – October 2, 2021
the latest NEWS
Palm Strings Ukulele Festival III
Festival season is about to begin and we are heading to Palm Springs to open our year. 2016 was a challenging year with Diana having back surgery in May and me having shoulder surgery in August, but all things considered, we're both doing pretty darn well. Diana's...
What’s with the bridge?
The New Drilled-Through Bridge In our most recent ukulele builds we've changed over to a drilled-through bridge. There are a number of reasons for this and we'll go over them here. Besides looking very clean and simple, the drilled-through bridge offers several...
Cutting soundboards and backboards
As I rehabilitate my shoulder, I'm doing what I can in the shop, making the various bits and pieces I need for building our ukuleles. I've got some beautiful Poplar and a nice piece of Mango that we've been cutting up. Poplar is so varied. It's amazing how different...
Headless or not? That is the question.
Headless or not? As we've been playing our first solid body electric basses, we've definitely noticed the weight, particularly after playing ukuleles. Our v1.x basses, while lighter than most full-size basses, still are quite hefty. So the notion of going headless, as...
Workshop – V2.2_opt.B
Design of the workshop continues apace Space planning is fascinating to me. We recently re-designed our kitchen and it is now a functional masterpiece. You won't see it's modest design featured in Architectural Digest but whether you're cooking for two or 22, it...
in the WORKSHOP
Our Little Bass is Taking Shape
We're working on a solid body, short-scale, electric bass. Here's where we are so far. The solid body is plywood. Since she's a prototype, we're going with simple utilitarian wood. Not too heavy, not too light, but very stable and strong. It's something we can really...
Lots going on in the shop these days
We're working on a lot of Keystones including a very special chopsticks braced one. We've just added the finish on the interiors of this set and we'll be closing them up this week. We've added this step of finishing the insides to increase the weatherproofing of our...
Shop Update: ukulele_Triumph
A new chopsticks braced ukulele is taking shape in the shop. Named "Triumph" for a number of reasons, it represents the pinnacle of our chopstick bracing development. There are two key improvements to our design shown here. The first is clearly visible. We added two...
“Iriguchi” translates from Japanese as ‘entrance’. You’ll see our name on doors and entries in Japan and Japan-towns around the world.