Ashton
UKE 100

This was a horrible Ukulele and most of the time I kept it hidden in its box like some Victorian illegitimate and somehow deformed child who was kept in the attic. In its defence I knew it was horrible when I brought it, my brother has a pink one that I had played before getting this and we had both agreed that that one was a piece of pink shite. I also went out of my way when choosing it to pick a particularly bad one when I was in the shop! Why? Well I brought it fairly soon after I had started collecting Ukuleles specifically for the purpose of practicing things like restringing, adjusting the saddle and nut, replacing the tuners; all of those things that I wanted to learn how to do properly but didn't want to practice on using Ukuleles that I valued. I picked Ashton over Lazy, (which was also in the shop and equally awful), because it was cheaper, and I picked the worst one in the shop so I have a big saddle and nut to work on and see if I could make it better - I couldn't! I have abused it quite a bit over the years and  I have now lost the saddle too, (Hoover accident). At one time I was going to take the neck off and use it for a Biscuit Tin Banjo but it got a reprieve, mainly because the neck is pretty horrible with a bad paint job up close, scratchy, badly finished frets and a horrible "ebonised" front that only pays the barest lip service to being a proper fret board. So why include it now? Well I though of some of the clunkers I have acquired since this one, like the plastic Clearwater, the Kent, the Hilo, the Leolani Bean... (I could go on), and particularly after doing the Hand and Co. entry I thought "I have included references to these at Ukulele Corner so why not the Ashton?" If nothing else it must have some redeeming survivability after sitting in my bits box for all of these years. Maybe if you were looking for a toy to give a small child? (but with the point on the headstock! Probably not if you want them to grow up with both eyes - that's Australian design for you, brash and vaguely dangerous!)

As a quick review on it as a proper Ukulele; it is awful! I have put a couple on Amazon but just to sum up here. Build quality is quite strong but the fit and finish is very poor. The paintwork is messy and poorly applied, as is the soundhole decal and the frets (which are made of some kind of metal but painted - badly - to look like brass), are also very rough and need proper dressing to avoid scratches when playing. The nut and saddle were not well fitted and the bridge unit is pretty poor quality and uses wood screws. With the poor nut and saddle the action is very high and the bridge itself is too high without a saddle, which means it cannot be lowered to an acceptable level (unless you took that off and sanded it down too!)

With the poor nut and bridge the intonation is way, way off, half a tone out by about the third fret! It is not really possible to make two chords without one of them being out of tune. this makes the sound quality hard to judge but from what you can make out it really isn't worth making the effort to improve any of the build issues.

Would I buy one again? NO!!! (and I've given this one away)

Would it last? Who cares its too awful to play

To sum up:- its very bright from a distance but there are plenty of better Ukuleles out there; even in this price range (Aiersi, Mahalo, Bugsgear...)