The feeling among luthiers that I have read or spoken to is that the back and side woods of an instrument, in spite of rhetoric to the contrary, contributes maybe 10% – 15% to the overall sound. A famous Spanish guitar maker Antonio Torres even went so far as to make the back and sides of a guitar from paper mache to show how unimportant the back and side woods were to the overall sound. See https://www.classicalguitardelcamp.com/viewtopic.php?t=29408 for a reference.
The traditional ukulele has a hardwood top, matching the back and sides, the all-koa ukulele is a classic, and in this case the top can be quite stunning. However, I prefer the sound that one can get from a softwood top. So the back and side woods are where most of the visual ‘bling’ comes from, since the top is usually a straight grained, evenly colored softwood, at least the way I build things. (See some of my streaky redwood tops for a somewhat more visually interesting top that sounds great.) So, the back and side woods are there for visual interest, more so than musical tone, and thus the look and ‘bling’ is important. In that vein I present the four backs I’m currently working on. As a somewhat new way of working I gave then an initial coat of sealer now, before the body is assembled, since it will help protect against accidental scratches and the like, and I’m not going to be gluing anything to the outside, so why not do it at this stage. In order:
casuarina tenor, black walnut baritone, spalted sycamore concert, casuarina tenor:
