Harmony Canoe Ukulele

Harmony Canoe Ukulele

1950's

According to both Elderly and Lardy's  Ukulele Database, this is a 50's era Harmony Ukulele, made of birch and with a plastic fretboard. It came with a case, which you can see in the pictures, and the smell of moth balls, which you can't. It cost me $48, with $11 for shipping when I won it back in September.

When the uke arrived, it smelled like it had been in someone's basement for the last 30 years, and like the Fluke I bought a year and a half ago, which wreaked of cigarette smoke, I put a tennis shoe deodorant ball inside the case. After four months, the smell improved considerably.

           

The uke was dusty, missing a string and missing the head from a tuning machine. I rummaged through the various guitar and ukulele parts that I have until I found a a suitable replacement. Though it looks a bit different, it does the job and I don't have to replace all the tuning heads.

From there, I got out the usual array of cleaning materials. Mini shop vac with attachments to get the dustbunnies out of the body, and Dunlop guitar polish for the body. I sometimes use lemon oil, but didn't on this one. With some elbow grease, it shined up well. I've used Aquila Red Strings, and thought they sounded okay. This time I used the Kala Red strings. I like using the red strings against the  white plastic fretboards-snazzier, you know.

Since this uke was in pretty good shape when I got it, getting it to smell better was really the biggest concern. I cleaned, vacuumed, polished and tightened it, and with the new strings, it was good to go.

My initial take is that it's a bit quieter than the Fluke or the Kay, (which otherwise it closely resembles). It plays reasonably well, though. I think it will be the 'work' ukulele, since I have more than enough ukes here at home. It's pretty, too, so if I have it out at work, it at least looks interesting.