The internet premiere of The KoAloha Ukulele Story will be shown on the Ukulele Underground today (Saturday, April 11th) at 3pm Hawaii Time. Please check it out and you could win some prizes from KoAloha!! Check it out at this link!!
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The KoAloha Ukulele Story - Internet Premiere on Ukulele Underground!
The internet premiere of The KoAloha Ukulele Story will be shown on the Ukulele Underground today (Saturday, April 11th) at 3pm Hawaii Time. Please check it out and you could win some prizes from KoAloha!! Check it out at this link!!
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Tracking a piece of wood, milling, part one
I will be doing a series of posts, tracking different pieces of koa, as they make their way to ukulele stardom. This is milling, part one.
Here we have an ordinary plank of koa. Unless you love wood, pretty boring, huh? I do have the saw in the back drop for ambiance, but how exciting can a piece of wood be? Well, good thing you asked. Before we can even start to work with the lumber, we need to dry it. Almost all of our lumber is bought green, which is a wood working term for freshly milled lumber. The relative moisture content can be anywhere from 40-100%, and anything over 12% is not workable. There are two ways to dry lumber. Air dry, or kiln dry. There are pros and cons to each, but I won't go into great detail for now. In short, air drying takes longer and kiln drying is faster. We are primarily a production shop, so the faster method best suits our schedule. Even in a kiln, 4/4"(or 1") koa takes about 6 weeks to dry. I fast forwarded the process and pictured is a dried, ready to grade board of koa.
Next, we come to my main job, which is grading and selecting the part of the ukulele, from the raw lumber. Koa is a very diverse tree, in terms of grain density, grain pattern, and color. While this makes selecting consistent sounding boards a little more difficult, it keeps my day interesting. Half of lumber grading is objective, using the forementioned qualities to predetermine what the uke will look and sound like. However, wood is a natural medium and there are always surprises. That is where the feel aspect comes in. There is no way to really qualify exactly what it means to feel it, so I will say that nothing short of experience will help you to do so. This particular billet will become a book matched face, or top for a concert sized ukulele. The directional arrow is to help me keep track of what side to reference off of.
In this picture, the rough sawn billet is awaiting pre-dimensioning on my tablesaw. When a tree is alive, it moves water from it's roots to leaves, to stay alive. Because of this, wood very easily absorbs and releases moisture to the air. This constant process of absorbtion and release is what is called wood movement. Nothing can stop it, short of encasing the wood in a block of resin. As a result, anything made of wood will always be in the process of contracting or expanding. The pre-dimensioning, takes the billets to a uniform size, which makes it easier to keep track of the individual part, as well as minimize sawing and sanding time. However, there is enough over size to account for the wood's movement, as we continue through the milling stages.
The last picture is the concert face billet, pre-dimensioned, surfaced, and jointed. Before we can start to resaw, the wood needs to have one large surface flat, as well as the two adjoining lengthwise edges. Flattening the wide face is called surfacing, or facing, while trimming the edges is called jointing. Both processes are done on a jointer.
Well, that's it for today. The next installment will feature our newest employee, Dustin. He's the new guy, so he resaws and sands a lot. When he's done with that, he resaws and sands some more. Once in a while we let him eat and sleep, but not until he's done resawing and sanding.
Here we have an ordinary plank of koa. Unless you love wood, pretty boring, huh? I do have the saw in the back drop for ambiance, but how exciting can a piece of wood be? Well, good thing you asked. Before we can even start to work with the lumber, we need to dry it. Almost all of our lumber is bought green, which is a wood working term for freshly milled lumber. The relative moisture content can be anywhere from 40-100%, and anything over 12% is not workable. There are two ways to dry lumber. Air dry, or kiln dry. There are pros and cons to each, but I won't go into great detail for now. In short, air drying takes longer and kiln drying is faster. We are primarily a production shop, so the faster method best suits our schedule. Even in a kiln, 4/4"(or 1") koa takes about 6 weeks to dry. I fast forwarded the process and pictured is a dried, ready to grade board of koa.
Next, we come to my main job, which is grading and selecting the part of the ukulele, from the raw lumber. Koa is a very diverse tree, in terms of grain density, grain pattern, and color. While this makes selecting consistent sounding boards a little more difficult, it keeps my day interesting. Half of lumber grading is objective, using the forementioned qualities to predetermine what the uke will look and sound like. However, wood is a natural medium and there are always surprises. That is where the feel aspect comes in. There is no way to really qualify exactly what it means to feel it, so I will say that nothing short of experience will help you to do so. This particular billet will become a book matched face, or top for a concert sized ukulele. The directional arrow is to help me keep track of what side to reference off of.
In this picture, the rough sawn billet is awaiting pre-dimensioning on my tablesaw. When a tree is alive, it moves water from it's roots to leaves, to stay alive. Because of this, wood very easily absorbs and releases moisture to the air. This constant process of absorbtion and release is what is called wood movement. Nothing can stop it, short of encasing the wood in a block of resin. As a result, anything made of wood will always be in the process of contracting or expanding. The pre-dimensioning, takes the billets to a uniform size, which makes it easier to keep track of the individual part, as well as minimize sawing and sanding time. However, there is enough over size to account for the wood's movement, as we continue through the milling stages.
The last picture is the concert face billet, pre-dimensioned, surfaced, and jointed. Before we can start to resaw, the wood needs to have one large surface flat, as well as the two adjoining lengthwise edges. Flattening the wide face is called surfacing, or facing, while trimming the edges is called jointing. Both processes are done on a jointer.
Well, that's it for today. The next installment will feature our newest employee, Dustin. He's the new guy, so he resaws and sands a lot. When he's done with that, he resaws and sands some more. Once in a while we let him eat and sleep, but not until he's done resawing and sanding.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
The KoAloha Ukulele Story - Hawaii Premiere 2009
The Hawaii premiere of The KoAloha Ukulele Story was a great success! Many thanks to the Arts at Mark's Garage for letting us use their place, as well as The Willows for catering. Also thanks to Herb Ohta Jr., Tony Conjugacion and Gordon Mark for their performances. The place was jam packed and everyone had a great time. Special thanks to Gary San Angel and Rocky Kev for making this incredible and inspiring film! Mahalo Lui Noa!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
The KoAloha Ukulele Story - Hawaii Premiere
The KoAloha Ukulele Story will be shown at a special private screening at the Arts at Marks Garage. Creator Gary San Angel will be there to present it, and KoAloha creator and founder Alvin "Papa KoAloha" Okami will be there to perform after the screening. Herb Ohta Jr. will also be there to perform with Alvin. This is a historic event for KoAloha Ukulele, as the film has won the Honolulu International Film Festival's Gold Kahuna Award 2009. We would like to congratulate Gary San Angel and Rocky Kev for all their work in making this film a success!
Shout out to Victoria Vox and TJ Mayeshiro
This year has been a crazy year so far, and yet it's only March!
I'd like to say that all our supported artists are working as hard as ever, and I'd like to make sure everyone checks out Victoria Vox! Her myspace page is da bomb! Check it out here:
http://www.myspace.com/victoriavox
We'd also like to shout out to TJ Mayeshiro who is now supported by us! He has a new web page here (still under construction):
http://www.tjmayeshiro.com/
TJ is a great new talent and we're very happy to have on board!
Thanks to Victoria, TJ and all our supported artists!
I'd like to say that all our supported artists are working as hard as ever, and I'd like to make sure everyone checks out Victoria Vox! Her myspace page is da bomb! Check it out here:
http://www.myspace.com/victoriavox
We'd also like to shout out to TJ Mayeshiro who is now supported by us! He has a new web page here (still under construction):
http://www.tjmayeshiro.com/
TJ is a great new talent and we're very happy to have on board!
Thanks to Victoria, TJ and all our supported artists!
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