This tenor ukulele is instrument #3 in a series I’ve made from Mninga (Pterocarpus angolensis) reclaimed from old furniture in Tanzania. The customer, a for a water walker in Minnesota. She said she wanted a water theme, so after some conversation we agreed that I would inlay the course of the St. Croix river in abalone down the fingerboard.
After further conversation, we decided to add Lake Superior to the north (on the headstock) and to make the St. Croix spill into the Mississippi (the sound hole rosette).
To complete the theme, I made the top from drift wood I recovered from a river bed in Tanzania. What fun!!
It has a sweet, mellow tone. Here is a sample from the shore of Lake Superior.