Kamaka HF-3D Ukulele: Fixing Fret End Sprout and Touching up Finish

It's not every day that we have ukulele royalty in The Dungeon! I bow to the mighty world famous Kamaka!

This is a fabulous Kamaka HF-3D Concert belonging to a friend. It's a fairly recent one. And after winter indoors in a place other than Hawaii, it has a minor case of  'fret end sprout.'

This is not atypical for newer instruments. It has been kept humidified, but the fingerboard shrunk a bit and left some fret ends sticking out - aka sprout.

Wood is an organic material. It shrinks and it expands. That's what happens. Keeping an eye on humidity helps prevent cracks and the like, but sometimes things happen. It's wood! And of course, the frets, being nickel silver, don't shrink with the board.

And there is also some finish touch-up I need to do as well.

This is the current Kamaka label. Their labels have changed a few times over the years. And for the first 83 years of the company's existence (1916 to 1999), their instruments didn't have serial numbers. The only way to approximately date them is by the label. And I am not able to find a serial number decoder online. I suspect Kamaka will provide that information if contacted.

My friend is very lucky to know a craftsperson at Kamaka. She did the wonderful custom artwork you see on the lower bout.

Here's a closeup of the very cool art. This is really a one-off piece. Very nice!

And the icing on the ukulele, as it were, is Jake Shimabukuro's signature.

Jake did this at the factory! He lives on Oahu, he's a Kamaka endorser, so I suspect he is there on occasion.

Both the art and the autograph have been lacquered over as far as I can tell - they won't be rubbing off.

The HF-3 model has super nice features, including rope purfing. And the "D" means "Deluxe" - super flamed koa. I love flame. Love love love it.

Check out that bookmatched headstock veneer. Mmmmm I want to eat it.

Shot of the back.

I could have stared at this for hours while it was on the bench.

Did I say I love flame?

And in addition to the wonderful koa, you get this fantastic rope purfling. This style is very traditional. Just wonderful.

I have work to do; can't stare at the wood any more.

The fret spout is not too bad. I use my smallest fret end file to knock it down so any sharp ends are flush with the fingerboard and the corners don't have any sharp edges.

This kind of detail makes playing a lot easier - who likes sharp fret ends? Nobody.

Here's the finish issue I mentioned.

Kamaka, unlike a lot of manufacturers, sprays clear lacquer of the edges of their fingerboards. As far as I'm aware, they've done this since at least the 1970s. It makes for a cool, glossy look.

Note the places on the edge of the fingerboard that appear to be white. What happened is as the board shrunk a bit, the frets of course did not. That's the 'sprout.' But since the fret ends were lacquered along with the fingerboard edge, the finish got pulled up around the frets, causing a 'blister' in the finish.

I tried a bit of lacquer reducer directly on the spots, thinking it might soften the finish and the blisters might lay flat.  That was not successful.

I mixed up some black nitrocellulose lacquer, fairly thin, and carefully brushed it over the bad spots. See the note on the jar that my lacquer is vegan, gluten free, and low calorie.

Finish repairs are always a delicate job, so I was proceeding with caution so as to not wreck the existing finish on such a fine instrument.

After I let the fresh lacquer dry for about a week, I polished it out with 400, 600, 800, and 1000 grit paper, and then 1500 up to 12000 grit Micro-mesh pads.

And then did a final polish with mild compound.

It was hard to photograph because the finish is so glossy and my shop lights reflect it like crazy.

I got 95% of the spots repaired. There are a couple of small areas that might have benefited from a second pass, but my friend is very happy with it as is. It looks virtually as new now.

And the frets are smooth to boot!

And with that, I bid aloha to the beautiful Kamaka, who is now off to earn tips!