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 How many cardboard boxes have you thrown away in the last year? Do you realize
how many potential baritone, tenor, concert, and soprano ukes you have sent to an early grave? It's time for
ukulele players to get green and stop this awful waste. Woody, a creative Rhode Island artist, is leading
the way. He recently unveiled "Proto Uke 1" (his cardboard-box-ukulele) to members of the Providence
Ukulele Club.
This amazing instrument looks like it was built by a carpenter on his lunch break, but ...........oh
what a sound! Who needs earth-polluting paint dots for fret markers when you've got colored toothpicks in your kitchen
drawer? Woody scoffs at Koa or Brazilian mahogony and chooses instead left over hardwood flooring and building
scraps from his deck. Why spend money on Grover tuners when cheaper and more earth-friendly thumbscrews from
Home Depot will do?
If this ukulele sounded like it looks, it would be just an oddity from "an outsider artist-luthier"
But it plays and sounds great! Even Dave Wasser from the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was amazed. Check out the
videos of Woody and Dave demonstrating this 95% post-consumer-content masterpiece. -The Flea
| Woody and Proto Uke1 |
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| Proto Uke 1 |
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Proto Uke1 Videos
Woody demonstrates his cardboard-box uke (large file)
Dave Wasser with Proto Uke1 "Uke Said It"
Dave Wasser with Proto Uke1 more.....
New!!! The construction of Proto Uke1 -by Woody
The first picture was my original idea for frets. I was going to use
6d 2" nails (evidenced
by the box).... This was before I cut off the
original head-stock and replaced it with something that angled away
from the nut.
The second and third picture are what the toothpick frets looked like
before I cut the
tips off. Very cool but impossible to play.
Lastly was when I thought I was finished. No sound holes were cut
into the box yet as I
was impressed by how loud it was just tacking
the box on.
~W
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