Gretsch Ukulele - After Rebuild

The little Gretsch soprano ukulele is together enough that I can take it outside and get some decent photos of it.

It came out very well I think, considering it was in pieces when I got it.  I treated the body with Kramer's Blemish Clarifier and also Antique Improver and it looks nice.  The grain is very nice.

There were three body cracks I fixed, plus several top and back-to-side joints that I reglued.  They are not noticeable now unless you're right on top of them.

As I mentioned in the last post, I still have a couple of setup issues to fix, but they should be straightforward.

It's a good looking little instrument.  There were thousands of these made in the 1950s, and quite a few have survived.

I strung it with regular Aquila strings, and it sounds pretty good.  It's surprisingly loud for its size, and has a nice clear tone.

I now have three mahogany bodied, ukuleles, and I can hear a 'signature' mahogany-bodied tone.  Fairly deep, woody, round, resonant, and throaty.   Very nice tone on this one, especially since it was an inexpensive instrument in its day (and still is today).

This is the only soprano I own, and I think it's a keeper.

One crazy thing I noticed about the headstock when I was stringing it - the tuning pegs are not squarely aligned!  See how they were mounted sort of haphazardly?  I'm surprised the factory didn't have a jig to line them up, but there you have it.

This picture with my Kala Marcy Marxer model tenor gives an idea of the size difference between a soprano and a tenor.  The tenor's not that big to start with, but a soprano is quite small!