Thunderbird (A Ukulele Superhero)

With a banjolele and Baloo my concert ukulele my UAS / UBS stoked fever was raging. My delirium was driving me to see how small of ukulele I could build and play? Time to buy a soprano uke and also try to build another even smaller ukulele.

"My delirium was driving me..."

Strumming Baloo

The least expensive, yet playable, soprano ukulele I could find on Amazon was a little yellow Mahalo for about $25. Done! So cute. I named it "Doug" after a good buddy that always leaves me smiling.

I also bought some mahogany and started cutting. With what I learned building the banjolele I knew I could make this new uke a little better. I also researched more and learned that in order to make a smaller uke I needed to make it electric. So it begins... sketching, cutting, ordering fret board, ordering tuning pegs, ordering string and, and, and.

Thunderbird Drawing and Parts.

The result was a very cute little instrument with a big name, "Thunderbird*". The mystery during the whole building process was will it play? A real questions since I was doing something I had never done and I was putting parts together from my own hand. I will also confess I purchased other parts based on cost and the lower the better. But, you can see in the picture that I successfully fulfilled my main mission. Thunderbird is indeed smaller than a soprano ukulele, but... Will it play?

Doug and Thunderbird

"The mystery...  ...will it play?"

Thunderbird is an electric ukulele so I also had to have an amplifier. I got a Honeytone because it was cute and cheap. The day of reckoning was soon at hand.

• String - check.
• Tuned - check.
• Battery - check.
• Amp on - check.

After one strum, I was grinning from ear to ear. Just let me say, it is very satisfying to ear sweet music coming from a ukulele. It is even better hearing the music come from a uke that you built yourself. It is small and beautiful and it even sounds good. It is quite nice to play. I will write more in another post about some of the details that went into making THUNDERBIRD!

You may have already guessed it though... before this one was done I was already thinking of improvements and the next one. That will also be another post. So long.

*Special thanks to Iain from the Midlands in England for naming this bad boy. Little-bitty instrument, great big sound!