What's New
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I accept
Exclusively! |
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8/18/10 -
Coming Soon! Custom-made Cigar Box
Ukulele! As a result of a collaboration between Charles
Zuber, Kala Ukulele, and me, I will soon be offering
custom-made, one-of-a-kind cigar box ukulele. Charles is a very talented
uke customer of mine who works in a tobacco shop in Manhattan, NYC.
These are his idea. He's sent me some very cool cigar boxes - the good
kind, made of mahogany and other quality wood. By special arrangement
with Kala, I will be acquiring their well-crafted mahogany necks,
rosewood fretboards, and tuning machines to assemble to the cigar boxes
along with polished rosewood bridges from Stewart MacDonald
Luthier's supply. The ukes will be principally sold at Charles' tobacco
store and from me on a limited basis. Standby for additional
information. |
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8/15/10 - Check
out the new Kala Ukulele Amplifiers! Full
10 Watts RMS, volume and tone controls, plus headphone jack. Custom
designed for ukulele tonal range. 110V, comes in three styles: Black,
Pink, and Vintage Tweed. See the Accessories section of my pricelist
page. Click here. |
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7/17/10 - I will
no longer broker Road Toad ukulele. I'm leaving the Road
Toad page up on my site so you can view the ukes for a
while. Road Toad has become so backlogged that they cannot in my
opinion provide reasonable turnaround for new customers. Current wait is
over a year for a hand-built RT uke. If you are willing to wait that
long, you can contact RT
directly.
Plus, my own custom instrument work is increasing with three custom
ukulele currently being built in my shop and I no longer have the time
to devote to the brokerage. |
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6/25/10 -
NEW!
Kala has just introduced these gorgeous
 Butterfly
Bocote ukuleles at the Nashville Music Show. Bocote is a
hard, dense, and fairly oily tropical wood that is highly prized for its
dramatic, wild striping. These dark brown or black streaks, which
sometimes form in concentric circles, give Bocote its defining look and
a truly distinctive appearance. It is also sometimes called Mexican
Rosewood. The pictures are a bit fuzzy and don't really give you the
full sense of the beauty of this rare wood.. Quantities are currently
very limited so order now! |
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4/1/10 -
J.W. Bosworth Custom Guitars is
now an authorized dealer for the super high-quality line of
Mi-Si Electronics Design
battery-less preamps and accessories.
A web page with product pictures, descriptions, technical data,
and competitive prices will be posted on this site soon. Check back
frequently. |
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3/26/10 -
Prices on K&K Sound
Pickups and Accessories have been slashed 10%!
See the K&K Sound page for details. |
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Kala uBASS now on SALE!
Only $499 including free case and UPS
Ground shipping to the USA! See the new models, too. Click here. |
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See the new
items and prices for 2010. Check out the new POCKET
UKE! Go to the Kala Pricelist
page for details. |
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November 25, 2009. Check out the new
hybrid Ukulele Guitar, the uTar! Mahogany, spruce top, 6
strings. Special introductory pricing. Click
here.
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November 3, 2009. Kala
has introduced a new Exotic Mahogany line of ukes. The
curly/flame satin mahogany with very cool black binding is stunning.
Check it out
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October 20, 2009. I am now an
authorized dealer for K&K Sound acoustic pickups, preamps,
and accessories. See the list of K&K Sound products
and my special prices by clicking here or the logo to the right.
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October 2, 2009. Do you
belong to an organized ukulele club? If so, have your club president or
representative contact me about qualifying
for and getting a group discount for club members on all Kala, Road
Toad,
and Custom-built
ukes and accessories! |
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Sept. 23, 2008 - By request, I will now
be adding a "Gray Squirrel" brand of fretted mountain dulcimers
to my line of hand-made instruments. Look for some interesting designs
and tone wood options. Note: I have a pet gray squirrel named Chipper
who I rescued as a tiny baby 2 years ago. After many failed attempts to
release him back into the wild (he refused to be left out in the woods),
he has taken up residence in my office in a huge multilevel ferret cage.
He's my buddy and I am the only one who can handle him without gloves.
There's more to the story, just ask me if you want to know.
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Sept. 10, 2008
- J. W. Bosworth Custom Guitars is now an authorized
Kala Brand Music Company Dealer in the
Midwest and online! The Kala Ukulele catalog and my price list is
available here. |
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Sapele/Englemann Spruce Tenor Ukulele Now Under Construction
(click picture for larger image):
This uke will have nicely ribboned sapele
sides, back and neck, neck is hand-carved; a hand-picked
Englemann spruce top; custom designed spruce top bracing; hand-laid
Australian Paua abalone rosette with bloodwood accents; Martin-style
backstripe, rosewood fretboard and
hand-carved bridge; Paua abalone fretboard dots; ebony bridge pins with
abalone dots; bloodwood headstock veneer; bone nut and saddle; bloodwood
bindings; gold Gotoh enclosed geared tuners with amber knobs;
hand-rubbed gloss lacquer finish, and many other features. The uke's design
is based on an original plan by
Hana Lima 'Ia
of Honolulu, HI, but adds features of the early C. F. Martin ukuleles. See
my custom instrument information
here.
- Overall length: 27-1/8"
- Scale length: 17"
- Total frets: 18
- Frets to the body: 14
A K&K
Sound pickup and preamp is installed.
Gluing neck scarf joint |
Neck and sides being
fitted |
Neck joint fitting. This method of joining the neck to the body is
called Spanish style. It ensures a very strong joint |
Edge gluing bookmatched halves of the Englemann spruce top. The edges
have been jointed and then sanded to perfectly join together with no
visible seam |
Spruce/sapele ukulele in
building jig, overview |
Building jig close-up |
Englemann spruce soundboard cut
to rough shape, ebony fretboard (left) with fret slots cut, and ebony
bridge blank. |
Close-up of 1/8" Australian
Paua abalone rosette, rough-fitted in the cut channel surrounding the
soundhole in the spruce top. The Paua is cut into ~1" curved pieces to
create a 3" I. D. circle. |
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Update, July 27, 2009: |
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Here, the Paua abalone rosette pieces have been edge matched and glued in place on the spruce
soundboard. Under it is the sapele back that has been bookmatched and
edge glued with a Martin-style marquetry backstripe.
It's not easy to see it, but
inside the soundhole is a ~1/8" wide veneer of Bloodwood. This will
match the body purfling as well as the headstock veneer. |
View of the sapele back with the backstripe. Both the soundboard and the
back have since been thickness sanded and all the glue marks are gone.
The backstripe is laid up with
tiny pieces of mahogany, poplar, and maple. |
Views of the sapele neck being
rough shaped. Large areas were carved out using my drill press with a
hole saw and sanding drums, my table saw with a jig to create the
curvature of the heel, and my band saw for the tapered areas.
Rough shaping is probably
the hardest and slowest task. I work with a sharp chisel, a rasp, and a
Dremel tool to get the shape just as I want it. The sapele is both hard
and soft - difficult to shape but easy to damage. No following of plans
here, it's all by eye...
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Two views of my Go-Bar deck
being used to clamp the carved spruce back braces during gluing.
I pre-shape my braces using
a scroll saw and once they are glued in place, I use a sharp chisel to
fine tune them. |
8/4/09: Top and back with carved spruce braces
installed.
This laser-cut rosette can be
installed to appear to float in the soundhole. It doesn't affect
tonality or volume and adds a beautiful accent to the ukulele. Other
sizes, designs and wood types are available. These rosettes can also be
installed in dulcimers and guitars as sound port covers. |
Top braces close up. Note the scalloping
that is more typically used on larger acoustic instruments.
Back braces close up with label. (Note: the braces are quite straight.
The camera's wide angle lens makes them look curved and not quite
parallel) |
Gluing top to sides in jig. Kerfing (1/4" square blocks of mahogany) is
being glued in to strengthen the joint.
Close-up of kerfing inside lower bout. Kerfing also provides the wood
depth needed for the binding channels while still maintaining top/side
joint strength. |
I sent the Bloodwood headstock
veneer and my digitized logo to a friend, Al Ursich, who owns a
"digital" workshop. Using a 20W laser engraver, this is what he
produced. The name will be painted black and the guitar shape will be
gold leafed - all by hand.
See more of Al's work at the
Pocono
Digital Woodshop.
Back of headstock with veneer laminates. Bloodwood on top, then white,
then black. |
Kerfing installed, back ready to be glued on. |
But wait!
Let's install a K&K Sound Twin Spot pickup
system and a K&K Sound PrePhase preamp before we put on the back.
The pickups are installed directly under the bridge saddle position and
in between pairs of strings. |
View of the gold endpin switch jack. This will match the gold Gotoh
geared tuners. |
K&K Sound PrePhase preamp peeking out of the soundhole. This has
a volume control and a tiny switch to control the output phase of the
pickups. This is very effective in cutting down on feedback.
This little baby, when plugged into my Peavey amp at volume level
3, just about knocked me out of the room when I tapped on the
soundboard. Incredible sensitivity and tonal qualities. |
This series shows how the back is glued to the
sides of the ukulele. |
I'm using spool clamps that were originally
designed for violin building. |
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8/5/09. New tenor uke tonewood set from Pat at YKnotWood - Pau
Ferro, also known as Brazilian Rosewood. |
Another new uke tonewood set from YKnotWood -
Satinwood from Ceylon (Sri Lanka). |
A similar ukulele is also under construction with lightly figured
premium Oregon
myrtle back and sides. Myrtle is much like maple in its tonal qualities.
The back halves in this picture are actually the same color - the
lighting makes one look darker than the other. |
See my
Custom Orders page to order a solid-body Fender
Telecaster style electric
guitar...
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Tonewood Samples (click picture for larger image):
Jatoba (South American/
Brazilian Cherry) |
Bubinga |
Sapele Mahogany |
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Jatoba is an
exceptionally hard and dense wood. It dulls steel tools rapidly. This
wood will be used as a substitute for now scarce Koa since its grain and
color is very similar. The hardness allows for a slightly more ringing
tone than Koa. Jatoba is an exclusive to my instruments - not found
elsewhere. |
Bubinga has
qualities very similar to both Rosewood and Mahogany. It is popularly
used for backs and sides as well as necks and bridges. The figure in
this piece is quite beautiful up close and the color is a rich, dark
rose. Lexus uses
this wood for interior trim in its high-end luxury cars. |
Sapele, from
Africa, is also frequently used for backs and sides as well as necks and
bridges. It is an affordable substitute for Honduran mahogany. This
piece has very distinctive grain and color.
Cadillac uses this wood in their STS
model.
Note:
These images are of the raw wood. No finish has been applied. Imagine
what they will look like with a few coats of lacquer... |
New Tools Added to Workshop (click picture for larger image).
They
are AWESOME!:
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| Grizzly
2HP 17" Band Saw with resaw fence |
Grizzly
18" Open End Drum Sander
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| Added 8/5/09: Blues Creek
Guitar's Binding Machine by John Hall. Used to accurately route out the
channel in the edges of guitars/ukuleles, etc. for the binding material.
The guitar shaped carriage securely holds the instrument level while a
laminate router with a bearing-guided straight bit floats on an
articulated arm. The carriage is rotated with the instrument against the
bit, making a perfect channel at any depth and height required. At
present, I will be capable of installing 0.040" and 0.060" bindings.
By purchasing additional bearings of different diameters, different size
binding channels can be cut. Simple and slick tool. (Larger image
not available yet) |
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