What Ukulele Information and Resources Are Available on Ukuleles by Kawika?

Ukuleles by Kawika is a personal luthier's site that pairs a working instrument-maker's shop notes with a reference collection of Hawaiian ukulele history. If you want practical guidance on stringing and tuning a four-string tenor, background on koa wood, or a place to look up vintage instruments and old instruction manuals, the ukulele sections cover all three. The site also hosts a large body of lauhala weaving tutorials, which are unrelated to the instrument and can be skipped if you came only for ukulele content.

Practical playing and setup guidance

The "Ukuleles" section opens with hands-on material rather than sales copy:

• Attaching strings to tuning pegs and bridge — a step-by-step reference for restringing, useful when you are installing a new set and want the winding at the peg and the knot or tie at the bridge done correctly.
• Tunings for the 4-string tenor — tuning references specific to the tenor scale, so you can check your target pitches before you tighten anything.

These pages are written as instructions, not product listings. Expect to supply your own strings and instrument; the site does not present itself as a retail checkout for instruments.

Wood, history, and identification

Three resources support research and buying decisions on older instruments:

There is also a page on collecting ukuleles and memorabilia, which is the closest thing to guidance for someone starting or organizing a collection. Use the characteristics database and photo archive together when you are trying to place an unlabeled instrument or judge whether a listed feature is period-appropriate.

Vintage manuals and shop technique

The Vintage Ukulele Instruction Manuals page is the most directly reusable resource for players: older method books often contain chord and strumming approaches that current tutorials skip.

For builders and repairers, "Kawika's Shop Tips" is the technical core of the site. Documented topics include:

• Soundhole and trim routing jig — a shop-made jig for cutting soundholes and trim channels.
• Edge gluing tops, backs, and sides — joining plates and closing the body.
• Making and installing the Ukulele Bridge Doctor — a bridge-support device and its installation.
• Aligning and gluing bridges, plus bridge gluing calculations.
• Bridges and bridge plate sizes — dimensional reference.
• Measuring string compensation across varying scale lengths — how saddle position shifts with scale.
• String diameter variability and frequency response — how gauge choices affect tone.

The compensation and string-diameter pages are the ones to read before changing scale length or string gauge, since both change where the saddle needs to sit and how the instrument responds.

How to use the site efficiently

1. Start from the ukulele menu group if you are a player; go straight to "Kawika's Shop Tips" if you are building or repairing.
2. For identification work, open the characteristics database and the old-photo archive in separate tabs and compare feature by feature.
3. Treat the shop-tip pages as notes from one maker's bench: they describe specific jigs and calculations, so adapt dimensions to your own scale length rather than copying them directly.
4. Ignore the weaving section unless lauhala craft is also your interest — it dominates the site's navigation and can make the ukulele pages harder to find.

One caveat: the site is organized as a blog-style archive with a search box, and the menu mixes weaving and ukulele topics at the same level. Searching for a specific term such as "compensation" or "koa" is faster than browsing the sidebar. Pricing and ordering details for instruments are not laid out in the pages reviewed here, so contact the maker directly if you are interested in a built instrument rather than the reference material.