Handmade Ukulele Reviews

I recently interviewed Jay Licthy for Mel Bay’s ukesessions and shortly after Jay sent me a low g tenor uke to check out. Since I don’t do instrument reviews as part of the interviews I thought I would post it here. Jay seems like a really good guy and he certainly took a great deal of care building this uke.
Here’s my review:Review of T-24 UkuleleBuilt by Jay Lichty
http://lichtyguitars.com/I came across Jay Lichty’s website while looking for ukulele builder’s to interview for Mel Bay’s Ukesessions.com website. During the interview Jay mentioned that he was sending a just completed uke on a road trip and asked if I would be interested in having it for a couple of weeks. Not being one to turn down the chance to play a high end instrument, especially to get to really know it over an extended time, I immediately said I’d be happy to have it for a while.Jay is a pleasant guy that truly enjoys building musical instruments & he was quite willing to share information, building tips and answer any and all questions. I am confident that he treats everyone in the same way, especially if your are talking about instruments, his or others.The day the uke arrived was a very warm day for January, I didn’t have to wait to open the box. The first thing I noticed was how great the finish looked. Jay uses EM6000, from Target Coatings, a water-based lacquer. We had talked at length about this finish, and I was skeptical as I had had bad experiences with water-based lacquer in the past, and had sworn I would never try it again. The finish is hard and very glossy, with no blue tint often found with other water-based finishes. It looks and feels so good that I am going to give it a try very soon. I give Jay credit for doing a great job of using the finish to it’s best advantage.As I looked it over more, it was obvious that Jay does tremendous work. The joints were perfect, not a sign of slop or of covering anything up anywhere on the instrument. The binding and rosette are well executed, done as perfectly as you could ask. Jay’s fretwork is excellent, every fret is properly seated on the fretboard, the frets are leveled and crowned beautifully. The bone nut and saddle functioned perfectly and were well polished to give a very nice finishing touch. The Gotoh tuners operated smoothly and matched the look of the rest of the uke well. It has a string-through bridge, which is a very nice feature, and gives a much cleaner look than the various tie-on bridges and the “too big” look of using guitar bridge pins. This design also eliminates the chances of the bridged breaking where the strings are tied on, and reduces the chances of string torque pulling the bridge up.Looks are important, but the real test is how does it feel and sound. Since “the best” is subjective, I won’t make that claim for any instrument. This ukulele is Jay’s T-24, low “g” model. I hadn’t played a low g uke before, so I was quite interested to hear it. The sound is rich and full, the low g lent a bit more “guitar” quality to the sound than I was used to from a ukulele.It took a little playing time to get used to the sound of the low g, it is very different from a high g uke. The T-24 sounded very good, rich, warm and full, with an even and balanced volume and tone across all the strings. After getting used to the sound, I realized that the high and low g can’t really be compared, because they are very different. One is not “better”, they are just different. While not the best analogy, it’s somewhat like the difference between 6 and 12 string guitars. Is one better? No, just different. One, or the other, may work better in a particular setting, but both can be excellent instruments.This is how you explain the need for more than one instrument, and a good reason to get a matched set, one low g and one high g. The T-24 felt great to play, the action was nice and low with no buzzing. The neck was very comfortable in my hand, the 17″ tenor scale allowed plenty of room to maneuver for my large hands and fretting was quite easy. The string spacing allowed plenty of room for playing adjacent strings cleanly.

Jay has done a great job on this uke, it is one that I would be very happy to own. Jay presented himself very professionally, I would have no hesitations placing an order with him.

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Joe Mendel

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