As I was driving around the ‘neighborhood’ (quotes because I am out in the country, so the neighborhood is not very dense) I noticed that a rather large sugar maple had been taken down along the road. I got out to look, and could see from the split off wedge taken out as part of the tree felling, that the wood was quite curly, with an even fine curl, one of my favorites. I asked the owner if I could cut a couple of pieces to make ukuleles. He said yes, so I went back with my chain saw. I first cut a piece a ways up from the base to verify the the curly extended up the tree, and was not just confined to the very bottom. The results seemed outstanding, the same fine curl. I cut a couple of nice 5 inch thick billets. When these get re-sawn and dried, in a couple of years they will make some really nice ukuleles and the price was right!
The fine curl
The billets on the ukulele wood pile
