Kicking new life into an old instrument
This was the first ukulele I ever bought, from a music store near Kendall Square in Cambridge MA c. 1990. I think it cost about $30, which made it cheap for a uke even then but quite a lot for my ramen-based budget. There is no manufacturer listed anywhere on it, just a “Made in Taiwan” sticker visible inside the soundhole. I carried it around for years, through half a dozen moves, before I learned how to play the darned thing. Somewhere along the way, a clerk at a music store advised me that changing out the strings to decent Aquilas would make a world of sonic difference– and boy was he right. Even after I procured “real” instruments and proficiency, this little guy was always fun to pick up for a purely innocent strum.
Alas, the day came when I pushed it too far. While trying to tune it up a full step, the cheap screws which held the cheap bridge through the cheap soundboard sproinged out.
After it sat around for a year during which I could never bring myself to throw it away, I decided to have some fun with it.
First, I cut a hole in the side so that I could use forceps to glue some basswood reinforcing under the bridge location. I was able to drill/screw the bridge back in place, as well as a passive pickup inside the body and a microphone jack, both wired to an onboard pre-amp that I expanded the hole in the side to accomodate. A sticker of Hank Williams and some other cheap decorations gave it the bling I was looking for.
Now that I was wired for sound, I replaced the plastic nut with a real bone nut that is deliberately mounted tall-side up, creating very high action, so that I can play this with a slide. The reason it broke in the first place is because I was tuning it up in order to play slide, which was thwarted anyhow by its low action.
I tried stringing this with very light gauge metal strings, but the tension was starting to show in the bridge so I swapped them out for regular nylon. (Aquila, of course.)
There is no end of fun now, playing acoustic slide blues and then plugging it into some effects pedals and through an amp for completely unexpected and terribly fun noise.
Hot Rod Uke.
