Special thanks to Rick Turner for this interview! Visit the Compass Rose Ukuleles website.

Q: Rick, after more than four decades in the guitar building business, I'm curious how your migration to building ukuleles came to be.

Rick Turner: It's been an interesting project. Barry Pearlman, now a partner here at the company, came to me in 2003 or '04 with the idea of our making ukes. He had been working a bit with Kenny Hill who decided to drop out of the uke biz at just the time that Barry thought it was time to really get into it. Barry was quite persuasive, and so I paid attention. I did a lot of homework, and I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to make "Hawaiian" style ukes; there are some wonderful companies and luthiers doing that already. So we decided to make a West Coast uke. It's honestly aimed at guitar players...the neck feel and all that... I want to bring guitarists over to the uke with these. But I paid attention to what local uke freaks said were the best features of vintage ukes and to the fact that the real "players" among ukes are the ones that don't have the fingerboard extension glued to the top. I make guitars with elevated fingerboards, so why not ukes? That gives the best of both worlds: extended note range with the top free to vibrate. The use of the decals is a nod to traditional uke logos, but it also gave me the freedom to do the Compass Rose as the sound hole rosette...rose = rosette.

Q: You've adopted the use of some different woods for Compass Rose ukuleles, not only for the back and sides, but the top as well. What lead you to use nontraditional woods such as sycamore and walnut?

RT: The use of woods like sycamore, walnut, and big leaf maple is strangely traditional...in the sense that Hawaiian ukes were made with local wood; it's just that koa is local wood in Hawaii, and these other woods are local to me. We'll also make some in myrtle. And whodathunkit with the use of these woods for tops? These alternative top woods all sound great...different from one another, but great if you treat them as individual species each with it's own tonal benefits and build requirements. We do tend to thin the harder woods down a bit more...closer to .063" for the maple, for instance, and about .070" for the sycamore which is less dense. One of the interesting things that came up at this year's NAMM show was that good players went from one to another to another of our ukes...we had four different woods represented there...and noted that each had a unique personality and that while one may have a preference, all of them sounded good, just different from one another.

And we do build them in the more "traditional" woods, koa and mahogany, but we've just had such good luck with our more native woods that it's become kind of a signature for us. For us it's these other woods, and we also have some local Black Acacia which Marc Silber christened "California Koa" for his ukes.

Q: Do Compass Rose ukuleles have additional features that veer from other ukes we'll find?

RT: We just got an order for a fancy uke for Gryphon and I talked them into letting me put a side port in it as a "personal monitor" for the player. That will be our next nontraditional feature, and if I really like it, it will become standard. We can do anything when it comes to binding, purfling, etc. All that decorative stuff is easy. The hard part is building from the inside out...from the core of what an instrument is supposed to be...a great tool for expressing musical ideas. One unusual one was a six string which I won't call a uke, but rather a soprano guitar. I built it for Henry Kaiser and it has a fully adjustable tilting neck so he can tweak action in a matter of seconds. That's borrowed from my Howe Orme guitars, and I do that on many of the acoustic guitars I build.

Q: And then there's the extended fingerboard that is raised off the body...

RT: Yes, there's a carbon fiber flat plate under the fingerboard extension. It's dadoed into both the fingerboard and neck and it's purpose is to support the fingerboard extension. I think the freeing of the top really makes a difference. There's precious little soundboard area on a uke, and what I've found works on my (few) acoustic guitars may be even more important on the ukes. The additional active soundboard adds a complexity to the sound...it's richer.

Q: Rick, there's been a lot of talk about the interesting body shape of the Compass Rose tenor uke. Can you tell us how you arrived at that shape?

RT: The Compass Rose tenor uke shape comes from what was called a Howe Orme Tenor Mandola from approximately 1897. I collect these instruments; they're a whole family of guitar shaped mandos in four sizes. The Compass Rose shape comes from the second in the series which included mandolin, tenor mandola, octave mandola, and cello mandola. My collection will be on display at the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, CA starting in May of this year, and there will be a major article on the brand in an upcoming issue of Fretboard Journal.

Q: Your tenor uke is a 12-fret model, as in the neck joining the body at the 12th fret. Did you consider a 14 fret, and what are your views on the bridge placement on the "sweet spot" on the soundboard?

RT: Yes, I like hitting that sweet spot. I see a lot of ukes with the bridges in what I consider to be weird places; it's like nobody is thinking of tone. This is something the classical guitar builders have worked out over a good 150 years of the "modern" classical instrument. You really want to hit close to the center of the lower bout. For our concert model, I'm actually going to a more hippy body style borrowed from the 1934 Gibson Super 400, a gigantic 18" archtop. I make my 16 1/4" and 15" guitars on that profile, just shrunken down (I sent them to some South American headhunters...), and I made a small archtop...12" across the lower bout...as a mando guitar several years ago. The shape is perfect to land the bridge in the right spot for a 14 fret concert neck. That will come out in the fall, probably.

Q: Does Compass Rose build one instrument at a time, or do you pre-produce components and build several at once?

RT: When we're running ukes, we try to build continuously with the body glue ups, but we process backs, tops, and sides in batches of about 20 ukes worth at a time. Same with other parts like end blocks, brace stock, and neck and fingerboard blanks. The idea is to batch process parts, make up kits, and then assemble the kits in a nice flow. That way we get some of the efficiencies of a production shop, but lavish individual attention on each box and each neck. I prefer to do the finish work on batches of 10 or so. Once I'm suited up and have finish mixed, I might as well do a decent batch. I do all the spraying here myself.

Q: Do you subscribe to the "tap-tuning" concept of building and thinning soundboards, or do you work through tried-and-true dimensions?

RT: We kind of do both. I've settled on starting thickness dimensions for the different woods we use, and I've got a basic brace carving pattern I like which is based on classical guitar bracing, but with no bridge plate. I do go through and check tops before and after they're glued on, and I may suggest taking a bit off of here or there. We do then thin out the tops around the edges in final sanding, and the top and back braces are both curved to the radius of the parts (25' dome for the tops, 15' dome for the backs), and they are glued on with the plates supported in radiused forms. The better custom uke builders do this, and virtually all guitars are made this way now for structural reasons. They're lighter, stronger, and deal with humidity changes better this way.

Q: I was impressed that from peeking in the soundhole, you can see that the bracing and kerfing is beautifully cut and smoothed. Some other makers seem to forget that there's a window there!

RT: Yes, I'm as proud of the inside work as the outside. This is interesting as it kind of comes from the Northern European stringed instrument making tradition. The Germans and Austrians (think C.F. Martin) traditionally did cleaner work inside their instruments than did the Spanish and Portugese. This probably has as much to do with the budget of the clients as anything else, but it led to a definite style of super clean work on the inside. Martins from the late 1800s were actually cleaner inside than from the much heralded Golden Era of the late '20s and early '30s. All you have to do is look inside. Also, I'm part of a lutherie community here on the West Coast that is pretty obsessive about clean interior work, so it just kind of has become a normal way to work. Whether it improves tone, I don't know, but it sure makes clients feel good about their choice of instruments!

Q: In the actual building process, I'm interested how the work is distributed within your company. Aside from designing Compass Rose ukuleles, are you involved in the actual assembly?

RT: Most of the work on the Compass Rose ukes is done by a couple of my wonderful employees, Allison and Jake, who have really refined the process that I developed beautifully. I tend to do the design work, make prototypes, do some tooling, and set the direction. I also do all the spray work...or at least 98% of it.

Q: How long is the process of building one Compass Rose ukuleles, and how many ukes are you capable of building in a given time?

RT: My goal is an 8 hour uke. I think we're at about 10 or 11 hours now, and I see ways to both improve the instruments and peel time off the process. That's something that few people understand...that you can make the process more efficient and improve quality at the same time. Just ask Bill Collings or Bob Taylor about that, and they'll tell you that for every hour shaved off the building process, the instruments got 10% better. Of course there is a point where it just goes straight to hell, but we're nowhere near that point, and I'll keep thing nicely on this side of the line.

Here's the thing: There's absolutely no point in building cheap instruments here in the United States anymore. It can't be done competitively. Chris Griffiths at Garrison Guitars will go down in history as the last person to set up a factory in North America making instruments that retail for under $600.00, and I don't know how he does it. Genius and paying in Canadian pesos. So our niche is making really nice instruments for a decent price, and making instruments that will forever hold their value and hopefully appreciate in price as the years
go on.

Q: The Compass Rose ukes I've seen have a satin finish; do you also offer a gloss finish?

RT: Sure, we do poly, we can do nitro, we can do anything anyone wants to pay for.

Q: I've heard rumors (actually--you may have started them!) that there will be concert size ukes coming from Compass Rose later in 2006. Are you able to elaborate yet on what we can expect to see for design, woods, features, pricing?

RT: I've alluded to the concert plans. It will be a 14 fret, probably on the long scale side...15 1/4"-15 1/2" or so...and based on the shape of the early Super 400.

Q: In addition to Compass Rose and Turner/Renaissance Guitars, weren't you also instrumental in developing an acoustic pickup line?

RT: Yes, one of my other professional lives is as a pickup and amplification designer. I have another company I'm involved with, D-TAR (Duncan Turner Acoustic Research www.d-tar.com ) with the folks down at Seymour Duncan Pickups. We offer the ukes with a D-TAR Timberline pickup installed. We put the preamp in the instrument, and then the batteries (2 x 9 volt) go in an off-board box. A stereo cable connects the uke to the battery box and takes the DC power up on the "ring" connection and brings the signal down on the "tip". Then there's a mono output jack on the box for connection to an amp or PA. I've done these for several local players, Ukulele Dick (Rick McKee) and Sandor Nagyszylanczy, both of the Ukaholics. The sound is astounding...just like the ukes, but louder. Surprised everyone who didn't think it could be done.

Q: Rick, any other thoughts we haven't covered today?

RT: That's about it, Kevin. Thanks so much for understanding what we're up to. Not all folks in the uke scene quite "get it", and we've taken a bit of heat for not making more Hawaiian-style ukes. But there are so many fine, fine builders of those, why should we do that? I don't like to build instruments under my name unless I can really bring something to the table other than the ability to build decently.

Thank you, Rick for your time!
Images courtesy of the Compass Rose website.