SMECK VITA UKE Grain Orientation

[Chris Oliver]

Hello, this is my first post here at Franks forum and I have several syndromes. WAS, GAS, OWWMAS are just a few. As many of you likely have similar syndromes, I hope you can understand my questions and comments at a level not appreciated by my regular day mates. :)

I have a gentleman asking for some help in repairing his HARMONY ROY SMECK VITA UKE (1930's). He has a couple holes in the back of the uke. I'm trying to find the grain orientation of the back of this line of uke... I don't have the uke in hand so am unable to make the determination myself.

Here is a brother of the uke at Elderly. www.elderly.com/vintage/items/180U-214.htm
Frank also has one in his museum on frets.com.

If anyone knows whether it is quartered, flatsawn or somewhere in between, I'd be grateful.

thanks,
chris

[Rob Mercure]

Chris,

All right, I plead being a dumb ass, now would you please define WAS, GAS, OWWMAS? And may I assume that Roy Smeck is a name? How about VITA?

Rob

[Frank Ford]

If you don't know Roy Smeck, you should become acquainted. He was one of the real stars of ukulele, guitar and banjo in the first part of the last century. Called the "wizard of the strings," he really put on a show with his flashy playing. Today's hotshots learned their stuff from somewhere, and Roy is one where. . .

Check him out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcQYt7xvA8M

Harmony made the "Vita" series of instruments, including ukuleles and guitars, all with those crazy seal soundholes.

[Ned Knepp]

The picture on Elderly's site looks quartered to me. I don't know what else you want to know before you actually have the instrument in hand. How well quartered is something that can only be determined by looking at the actual instrument.

Ned

[Chris Oliver]

Rob... WAS: wood acquisition syndrome, GAS: guitar acquisition, OWWMAS: old woodworking machine acquisitions, etc...

Frank, thanks for posting the vid link about Roy.

Ned, it does appear to be quartered on the site, I have an email in to Elderly as well. I was hoping someone on this forum actually knew the history of how those uke's were constructed (i.e. back cut) at Harmony and speak up here... maybe not.

thanks,
chris

[Frank Ford]

Chris -

If you don't have access to the instrument, then you won't be able to tell grain orientation. Those things were made by Harmony, and while most are quartered, curly mahogany, many are not. Harmony made inexpensive instruments, so you should expect to see good deal of variation in something as inconsequential as grain orientation of back wood.

[Chris Oliver]

Thanks again Frank,

I don't have the uke, currently the owner intends to repair it himself. He contacted me because I have old growth curly mahogany (flatsawn and quartersawn). He's not sure which it is and I would hate to send him material with the wrong grain direction. I hoped they were all cut one way or the other, although, if it were all flatsawn there would be varying degrees of grain from back to back, doh!

Here is some old growth curly mahogany we cut from the same log, one quartersawn and one flatsawn:
http://www.infinityluthiers.com/images/Reclaimed_Mahogany/InfinityL...
http://www.infinityluthiers.com/images/eBay/1b_front-back-wet.jpg

[bob marion]

i have two sopranos and a tenor guitar vita.  i've had one other soprano (traded for a '59 lg1).  the mahagony has been remarkedly consistent, "ribbon" figure.  one of the trade magazines of the day (1927) said that all the vitas were cut from the same cuban mahagony log.  i've also seen statements that the johnny marvins (have two of these) were from that log as well.  looks that way, but hard to believe that harmony would would have been that consistent.  next time i find the pdfs of the trade articles i'll post them up here.

 

the problem for you isn't, i think, the cut (well quartered, by the way), but the figure

 

bob