Harmony Uke Finish Question

[George Roberts]

Well, I couldn't help myself.  The uke was at an estate sale yesterday, for $16.  It is bound front and back, has a rosewood fingerboard, a bone nut, and is structurally sound.  There is a label on the back of the peghead saying "Made of Genuine Mahogany."  It even sounds pretty good.  However,  the finish is almost down to bare wood on either side of the sound hole.  It doesn't look like pick damage, and I'm guessing just fingernails from enthusiastic strumming.  I hope the picture shows the problem.

My question is:  what kind of finish is this, and what would be compatible with it?  Could I use several swipes of French polish? 

Thanks, George

[Mark Pollock]

My 2 cents - nice find! It should be decent sounding, I find that these Chicago-made ukes sound better in D than in C, for what it's worth.

I would do nothing except some cleaning. Don't do anything to the finish. It is beautiful. There are too many of these ukes that are perfect, because nobody plays the damn things, or they are simply unplayable, bad action, lousy intonation, etc. This one is obviously playable, and was used a lot. Play it with pride.

What kind of tuners are on there? Standard buttons, or those crazy off-center triangular ones?

[Greg Mirken]

Agreed. It looks exactly the way it should.

[Mark A. Kane]

Don't mess with it! It's so much cooler with the natural patina/aging.

[Ned Knepp]

I like these old harmony ukes. I think they sound pretty good but I've had intonation problems and found that the bridges may not be placed properly. I agree with the others that I probably wouldn't do anything with the finish BUT if you feel a need to seal it, a very thing coat of shellac would do it. If I were doing it, I would thin the shellac a LOT and use a brush to touch only the bare wood with just enough finish to seal and not build up a finish. This leaves as much of the original finish undisturbed as possible. I've done this on a couple of instruments that were damaged by "strong" strummers when I loaned an instrument and had good results. It's kind of a pain but IF you think you really need to seal the exposed wood, it will do the trick without too much visibility. All that said, I would probably leave it alone and just buy a case to limit exposure. 

BTW, you need to test the original finish with alcohol to see if it reacts to it before you attempt what I outlined. It's completely possible to try what I said and find that you are actually lifting the original finish and making a real mess of it all. That would be a disaster.

[George Roberts]

Wow!!!  Thanks for all the response.  I'm convinced.  I'll leave well enough alone.

Mark Pollock-  Yes, it has the crazy off-center triangular tuners.  Is that any clue as to age?

It still has those color coded strings on it, and I haven't seen those in years.

[Mark Pollock]

Just 50's or 60's. The same tuners are on their Roy Smeck model ukes, and I have some on some crazy Japanese made baritone ukes that I have hanging around.

I hadn't heard of color coded strings before. What a great idea for my student! (Uke club at an elementary school.)

[Paul Verticchio]

What a great way to spend $16!!!  Great score, Doc.

I recently 'conserved' a 60 year old dime-store quality uke for a friend (it's just a wall hanger) and took special care to reuse the color coded strings.  I too had completely forgotten about those. They're kind of 'chintzy cool'.

Love the pic's and I applaud to leave the finish 'as is'.  It's perfect!!

[George Roberts]

Hey Mark and Paul,

It tuned up okay with the old strings (one is not color coded) and sounds good.  It may sound better with new strings, but for now I'll leave the old ones on it.  I agree that they look vintage cool.  Mark, thanks for the info on the tuners.

[Richard Bales]

Quite a few of these have shown up at the Corktown Ukulele Jam, and I've worked on most of them.  Decent workaday uke, but a number of them had intonation problems.  In quite a few cases the intonation was improved by recutting the nut slots to the proper depth - they were too high to start and that resulted in sharp intonation on the first few frets.  If the intonation is bad further up the neck it is worth experimenting with different strings.  String tension can vary a lot in uke strings and the higher-tension ones typically fret sharper up the neck than lower-tension ones. 

[George Roberts]

Richard, you're spot on with your long-distance, sight-unseen diagnosis.  The bone nut is, in fact, way too high.  I'll take it down, and if the intonation is still off I would like to get your advice on which strings are lower tension.

(Hate to give up on the color coded strings, though.)