Quilted Maple
The neck is hard maple with an occasional bird's eye. The back plate is also hard maple. It's finished with a penetrating oil varnish for a smooth feel. That finish is also used for the body. It can be kept looking its best with an occasional light application of Renaissance microcrystalline wax which is available online.
The granadillo fretboard has a 16 to 20 inch compound radius. Just enough to make barre cords more comfortable to fret. It has decorative wooden fret markers made from the same tiles as the rosette. The frets are nickel silver with rounded polished fret ends. The tuners are Gotoh UPTLs with a 4:1 ratio and custom maple buttons. This tenor comes with a hard case for $4500.
See it at The Ukulele Site. Out of stock.
You've may have read this before about some of the wood I use. I've had this bigleaf quilted maple for quite a while now, over fifteen years, so it's well seasoned. I like the quilted figure of this particular set because it's more uniform than most quilted maple. Maple promotes that clear response which is great for note to note separation and the sustain is ample but it doesn't interfere with the fundamentals. Overall I'd say it's a rather sweet sounding tenor. I've framed the maple with granadillo bindings. There's granadillo on the headplate, fingerboard and bridge also.
The top is tight-grained Engelmann spruce supporting plenty of resonance up and down the neck. Because a softwood top needs more protection than the rest of the instrument, it has a thin urethane film finish. I've paired the Engelmann with Worth BT brown strings which I think take the best advantage of this Ken Franklin tenor. There is a wound GHS low G which balances well with the other strings. As always, I try out different sets of strings on a new instrument to see what set best suits it.
