Shane Speal's "Vintage Advertising" Uke

The new Gittylele ukulele kit is a blank canvas.

Not only is it a fun and easy kit to build, but all the bare wood on the surface just screams for custom artwork.

Use Custom Artwork

I recently customized this uke by wood-burning vintage advertising all over the body.

I chose labels and logs from 1930's fruit crates to give the uke the appearance that it was actually built using antique boxes.

The Gittylele kit is made from thin birch plywood, which is a dream to wood-burn!

I use a professional Colwood wood-burning system that burns hot, enabling me to create dark lines fast.

Birch plywood takes the pen beautifully.

I wanted to give the top and sides a continual look, so I prepared the artwork before building the kit.

Laying out the sides around the face enabled me to wrap the text from the top to the side panels.

I simply printed out the art on a piece of paper and traced it to the wood using old fashioned carbon paper.

Notice how the art continues around the side:

For the back, I found a contrasting piece of art from a similar fruit crate.

The wood-burning took me about 7 hours to complete.

Building the uke took just under an hour (not including glue drying time).

I will be building more...

Using vintage graphics and a wood-burning tool, you can turn your blank canvas into a rustic ukulele that celebrates the good ol' days.

Before you decide what look you'll give your Gittylele, check out your options first:

So, what look will you give your Gittylele?

2nd Feb 2017 Shane Speal