bamboo is technically a sort of grass – and not exactly the first material to come to one’s mind when thinking about ukuleles. in contrast to (most of) the more traditional tonewoods, bamboo is definitely sustainable, it grows fast and in vast amounts all over the planet. the downside of grass is the lack of diameter; kala solved this by joining bamboo stripes side by side to build the necessary “boards” big enough for a ukulele. even though this is technically not cut from a single piece of wood i still consider it “solid” as opposed to the typical laminate where multiple layers are stacked horizontally. the discussion about laminate vs massive wood on ukuleles is another topic; imho neither one is naturally better than the other, it really depends on the brand.

anyway, back to this one here: in fact the whole instrument is made out of solid bamboo and thus reminds me of the mabuhay mango ukuleles (which unfortunately have disappeared from the market, i think the factory fell victim to a hurricane a couple of years ago). this instrument will for sure not face any cites problems, i think it can be considered eco-friendly, at least in regards to the building material.

specifications

• body: all solid bamboo, satin finish
• neck: solid bamboo, typical kala profile, satin finish
• headstock: slotted, solid bamboo with kala logo screenprinted in black
• fingerboard: bamboo (not a surprise by now), black dots & side markers on frets 5, 7, 10, 12
• bridge: bamboo
• nut & saddle: black graph tec nubone® xb
• tuners: unbranded open geared metal tuners, black with vintage-style buttons
• strings: aquila super nylgut® (i think for looks i will soon replace them with fremont black medium)
• weight: 450 g
• length: 535 mm (~21″) overall (+10 mm for the strap button), 230 mm (~9″) body
• upper bout: 142 mm (5.625″)
• waist: 128 mm (5.125″)
• lower bout: 185 mm (7.25″) (it doesn’t really fit into the ortega soprano hardcase)
• depth: 50 mm at neck joint, 60 mm at bottom
• fretboard width at nut: 35 mm
• string spacing (g to a): 28 mm at nut, 36mm at 12th fret, 41 mm at bridge
• scale: 345 mm (~13.6″) from nut to bridge, 15 frets (body joint at 12)
• a single black strap button on the bottom
• came with a standard kala gigbag

first impressions

as one would expect from kala: no sharp edges anwhere, nicely built with no flaws in the finish. clean inside, no excess glue blobs in sight. slightly heavy on the head due to the pretty massive slotted headstock, the center of gravity is somewhere around 10th fret. time will tell if that is an issue – i guess it is not. maybe that’s the reason why the uke already comes with a strap button (which i find quite unusual on a soprano)? the tuners have a little bit of play but they do their job and their black is a nice contrast to the yellowish bamboo. due to the nature of bamboo the grain is very plain and parallel, without any fancy curls and swirls. just decent and calm, no bling at all.