Butser  Mountain  Music
"'Deco" Custom

Butser Mountain Music is kind of my local luthier. Mark Fletcher the person that runs it has an interesting history as a professional musician, something that he still does, (check out the Rockingbirds), but like most musicians he supplements his income between albums by something else; in his case cabinetmaking and luthiery.

A lot of the instruments he makes are based in the Danelectro style without being slavish copies and there's a bit of Danelectro in this with the body shape but he says the biggest influence is Art Deco with the sound holes, the headstock, the fretboard and the bridge

It's kind of a custom job he's done for me as usually he leaves them with a natural finish and does an asymmetric headstock, (also is normally a big fan of friction tuning pegs for Ukuleles so I not only had to persuade him to put geared machine heads on but I had to supply a set - but they are a nice set). Also the white finish was a bit of an experiment for him so possibly prototype is a better description than custom?

The Ukulele itself is a Concert on the small end of the scale - which is his standard size for Ukuleles - but has a little wider neck than usual for a Concert. It is very solidly made and smoothly finished with a very nice tone though a little quiet, (both the thick soundboard and the complicated bridge contribute to this). We did talk about putting in a pickup as we both knew for the previous models he has made that the design was quiet - I had a go on one of his other models before ordering - possibly ordering is the wrong work too? I told him what changes I thought would be good; and I received this as payment for doing the ButserMountainMusic.co.uk website, but knowing that I don't often plug my electro-acoustics up, (and being a cheapskate), I said not to bother with the pickup.