This Little Uke Of Mine: Luthier Pete Howlett’s Shining Light

Pete Howlett is a luthier living in rural Wales. Since the early 1990’s, he has built ukuleles and guitars inspired by classic techniques that also embrace innovation. His most widely recognized model, The Revelator, was purchased by Kala and has made a big impact on the ukulele world in the last few years. He is also known as a teacher and steward of the craft, freely sharing his techniques on the internet and with a few apprentices in the shop. Parkinson’s disease has slowed him down and he is looking to his retirement and his legacy, which made the perfect time to chat with him recently. A man of skill, hard work, creativity and faith, Pete Howlett is a foundational part of the ukulele revival of the 21st century.

I first found Pete through the Ukulele Underground Forum “Luthier’s Lounge” when I began to build around 2005. He was clearly a fine builder, showing both precision and creativity in his ukes. He was generous with advice but quick to point out flaws in logic or to bust internet myths about the craft. He had no patience with folks who just repeat what they read online, with no actual bench experience, spreading misinformation in a harmful way. I studied his forum posts carefully and watched his YouTube videos for any small tips I could pick up. Even though we have never met, we have stayed in touch over the years digitally. I am proud to call him a mentor and happy to share about him here.

Pete was born in London in 1955. He learned to play the acoustic guitar at 13, inspired by blues players like Reverend Gary Davis, Howlin’ Wolf, Blind Willie Johnson and Robert Johnson. He was a part of the acoustic blues circuit in the UK in the 1990’s, fondly remembered by luthier and guitar picker Ben Bonham:

“Pete would come and play with us in Bristol in the early ‘90’s. He was a quite good, aggressive, ragtime picker who played in the Blind Blake style. Everyone else played that style how Eric Clapton did it, but Pete did it properly, which made him a hero to me.”

He trained as a teacher for UK schools, specializing in craft design and technology, then started building guitars in the early 1990’s with Tony Revell. Their focus was on the small parlor guitar shapes that were popular with the original generation of acoustic blues artists. These sizes just weren’t available in the 1990’s, when most people were playing jumbo and dreadnaught guitars. They sold many of these guitars in Japan and in the United States after they placed one with blues artist Catfish Keith. The night Catfish got his, he immediately stopped using his finicky old Gibson in favor of the more dependable Howlett/Revell.

While at a guitar show in 1994 in Texas, he met Collier Thelean from Music Exchange in Hilo, who was looking for some handmade Koa ukes for the store. This was when Kamaka was selling ukes, but the rest of the “K” brands weren’t quite up and running yet. He showed Pete a nice uke for him to study and gave him some Koa, but Pete hit a few barriers while prototyping. First, this was before the internet was ubiquitous, so information on how to build ukuleles was harder to find. Second, there weren’t any books on the subject available. Third, the only ukuleles in the UK that Pete could find were not very nice, so it would be a trap to emulate them. Lastly, there were only 1-2 other ukulele builders in the UK at the time, and one of them only made banjo ukes. There just wasn’t freely available information on the subject nor a community of builders he easily could reach out to.

Despite this, Pete pushed on, delivering two ukes to Hilo, where they were well received. However, a problem quickly developed: the bridges came off! Pete didn’t know that a tenor uke needs an interior bridge plate to stiffen the top and keep it flat enough for the bridge to stay on. He connected with luthier Bob Gleason to get some building advice and was off and running, eventually selling around 180 ukes to this store. Overcoming this setback and finding success is part of what I admire about Pete. He encountered a problem, found a solution and practiced at the bench till he got it right.

Around 2008, Pete stepped away from teaching in the schools and focused on ukes to pay the bills. Two important cultural touchstones had occurred in the UK which allowed him to try building full time: the viral video of Jake Shimabukuro playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain appearing on Jools Holland. These sparks ignited an ukulele scene in the UK that is still burning bright today. I remember that when I met the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain at a festival in 2006, many of them had a Howlett in their hands. I recently asked former member Will Grove-White about this:

“I remember first meeting him in the early 2000s in London when he made ukes for George and Kitty. After then we would always pop into his workshop if we were ever passing. Peter Brooke Turner always played Howlett ukes and when my Martin had to be retired I played a wonderful alder soprano Howlett, which I still have and love. It accompanied me to Carnegie Hall and Windsor Castle (where it played for the Queen). Pete and the Ukulele Orchestra are of very much the same vintage - he’s always been one of the extended Ukulele Orchestra family!”

Pete had a new shop but was burdened by debt and had problems delivering custom orders. He dreamed up a simple design that could be made as quickly as possible, but with great sound and playability. For the shape, he sketched a boat paddle design made of all solid wood. He designed a process so he could make them quickly and promptly sold the first 24, erasing his debt. The model was named the “Marmite” ukulele, after the British food, because you either loved it or hated it! With the momentum from this project, Pete was able to fill his commission book with more traditional ukulele models as well. Paul Tucker, musician, teacher and former manager of the Southern Ukulele Store, first met Pete around this time.

“I think I’ve owned over a dozen Howlett ukes and currently have six! I’ve always looked forward to one of Pete’s phone calls and on a couple of occasions he has asked me to help name a new idea he has somehow magically come up with! I named the Marmite, a wonderful instrument and design that saw me through many years of playing in the band and teaching. He really does in my opinion make the very best instruments and I’m pretty sure the customers I sold Howlett’s too whilst running the Southern Ukulele Store would agree. I don’t play Howlett’s because Pete gives them to me, I buy them and play them because I love them and the man who builds them.”

In 2010 Pete was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which was the start of new physical and emotional challenges. Parkinson’s is a neurological disease that gradually affects the body and the mind, a real problem for someone who uses their hands to make a living. He was able to keep building on his own until 2015, when a young man from Germany, Tom Ziegenspeck, approached him about an apprenticeship. Tom was a student at a German craft school, which sends students out for a year of practical work before they finish their capstone projects. Pete said of this time,

“You know, it really changed my life. He is a complete master of his craft, with a fantastic German craft education. He is a self-starter, with incredible skills. I had him here for two years, in which we had the most fun time. It was very stimulating. We built 150 instruments together.”

I remember this time well, as Pete’s productivity and public reach increased, thanks to Tom’s hard work in the shop and on YouTube. I never missed one of their videos, enjoying the energy that the collaboration produced. I took a lot of notes and tried some of his ideas at the bench myself, as I was a junior builder at Mya-Moe at the time. It turns out, Pete was watching our videos too, always willing to pick up a tip from my bosses Gordon and Char, even though he was an established builder himself.

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This mini five string banjo has a 17” scale and an 8” head, which makes for a compact and comfortable way to play your “big” banjo music. I designed a string set that can be tuned to standard banjo pitch, which gives a warm tone and a surprising amount of volume. This customer asked for the brass hardware to be darkened first, which looks awesome with their wood choices. The curly Walnut is form a local tree and the Pistachio is from California orchards.

We didn’t want to paint the place ourselves because of the wear and tear to our bodies/hands and because it would need ladder and scaffold work that I wasn’t willing to do. The house is cement board siding and the shop is sheet metal, both with wood trim, so an expert was needed to puzzle out how to prep and coat all of these different surfaces.

We found a guy named Steven after he painted our neighbor’s house. It turns out that he lives nearby and his kid went to school with Henry. He brought along a guy named Adrian, who used to live up the road from us and is brothers with one of the employees at the farm/vineyard at the top of the hill.

Before they came over, I replaced some trim boards and did some carpentry repairs. Nicole borrowed a pressure washer and we cleaned all the cement around the house. Steven was adamant that a pressure washer should not be used on a building, because it can ruin surfaces and spill water inside. The first day they came, they used a hose and brushes and brooms to clean all the surfaces. It was amazing to see how much dirt, moss, dust, fungus, spiderwebs etc…was cleared away. Day two was some prep work, including Steven picking out all the old caulk in the house and scraping loose paint. He enlisted me for more carpentry work, which was hard but saved us some time and money.

Day three was more prep, including masking, caulking and filling nail holes. They also put a special primer on the flaking paint on the metal shop and regular primer on all the new wood I added during repairs.

Day four, five and six were all painting, with Steven spraying and Adrian painting trim, cutting in with a brush and no masking around it. He is very skilled.

On day six, he pointed out a spot on the peak of our house where the two sides of the manufactured home have been settling apart. We already knew about this and have done some repairs already, but he pointed out that it would be a good place to apply a plaque or kite shaped piece of wood to cover it up. We thought Nicole could add a decoration to it for whimsy’s sake. We decided to also make a smaller version of the same thing for above the front door, just for fun.

Day seven and eight were spent on trim, touchups and spraying the doors of the shop, which needed extra coats. Day nine was clean up and applying the plaques to the house.

We are really pleased with their work and it came in on time and on budget. It feels good to repair the home into better shape than we found it and weatherize it better for the future. It is not a fancy place, but we feel good taking care of it. God knows we can’t afford anything else locally, so we plan on being here a while. The fresh paint has really pointed out to us all the other things that now need attention, like window screens, garden planters, the screen door, the recycling bins, the sports gear chest, the picnic table and on and on.

Thanks for keeping the lights on…and paint on the walls…

A

Aaron Keim

Alder Neck Blanks Have Been Delivered!

Kevin sent the pallet of Alder neck blanks almost two weeks ago, but the freight company never called us to set up delivery. We left for Ukulele camp and crossed our fingers. While we were gone, our neighbor texted to say they were delivered and they were waiting outside the shop when we arrived home today…

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5 months ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · Aaron Keim

It showed up over 25% moisture. When I took two test blanks down today, it is around 11-13%, depending on whether I am testing the outside surface or a freshly cut one from the center of…

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Dedicated Workstations for Success

There are many ways to organize a shop, from one bench and a toolchest all the way to commercial organizing systems. Wherever you fit on that spectrum is influenced by the type of work you do, how fast you want to do it and whether you are woodworking commercially. I have found that one of the best ways to improve productivity and skill mastery is to organize the shop into dedicated workstations. I work as a luthier, building custom musical instruments as well as restorations. I use a series of dedicated workstations that allow me to produce over 50 custom instruments a year, from rough milling to final product. I must say, I am spoiled by the amount of shop space I have, with 1200 square feet plus a loft and a woodshed. I will try to give suggestions along the way for smaller shops so everyone can get something out of this list.

1) Sharpening

Quick and easy access to your sharpening setup is vital for productivity. I recommend a little cabinet, 2’x2’ that can hold your sharpening stones, a light, oil/water, paper towels and other sharpening accessories. If you don’t have room for this, consider keeping it on a tray that can slide on a shelf under the bench. It makes for easy access and collects the water/oil and mess. Since my shop space is large, I keep two other fine stones and strops in other locations for quick touchups.

2) Glue Ups

I like gluing my work on a different bench than the woodworking. I keep this bench directly behind me, so I can just spin around and glue up. Clamps are near at hand, hanging from the wall or rafters. In luthiery, I work with veneer and laminations quite a bit, which can get messy. I keep 3’x3’ pieces of Melamine around to put under the messy glue ups, which protect my benches and are easily cleaned. If you don’t have much room, you can set a plank over sawhorses for glue ups. If you work with casework or chairs, you can set the height of the glue bench lower to accommodate this easily. Between these two benches, I can have multiple small projects going at once, which increases my output.

3) Rough Work

It is a good idea to keep tools for different categories of work together in their own area. For rough work, I do most of it outside, with chainsaw, chop saw, wedges and froes. I keep these in my woodshed, so I can get the pieces cut to rough size before they come in the shop for further milling. All the tools to sharpen and work on my chainsaw are in one kit, stored next to the saw. My froes, wedges, mallet and green wood saw are kept in one box, so I can take it to the woods if need be. After the rough work, the wood hits a staging area right inside the shop door. This has my saw benches and my big bandsaw, which are likely to be the first stop for any piece of wood as it enters the shop. Since this is by the door, the waste is easily stacked outside for the woodstove with as little labor as possible.

4) Sanding and routing.

I use a series of routers in my work, especially for cutting the channels for decorative binding and inlay. All the routers have a dedicated bit and setting, so I rarely spend time to set them up. To collect all the chips and dust, I work over an inexpensive downdraft table which is connected to the dust collector. I also use my random orbiter sander here as well as most hand sanding. This dedicated station saves me time and keeps the shop cleaner.

5) Metal working

I also work with brass, bone and plastic, which I want to keep separate from the woodshop. I have a little 10’x10’ add on to the shop for this, which includes my torch for brazing, metal working tools, grinders and sharpening station. This helps wood chips from mingling with this waste and cuts down on fire danger. In a smaller shop, this sort of work can be relegated to a corner far from your bench.

6) A clean room

The front room of my shop is where I do the final work on musical instruments, repairs, restorations, meet with clients, writing and office work. It is separated from the woodshop, which helps keep the room a little cleaner. It is far enough from the other bench and the sharpening station that I have doubles of many hand tools in this room as well as a mini sharpening setup. This keeps me from pacing all around the shop looking for things and wasting time. Maybe a small lean-to added to your shop or a spare room inside the house could serve the same purpose for you.

7) A digital space

A portion of my workday is dedicated the digital world, like zoom calls, interviews, live streams, podcasts, photos or videos. The end of the clean room has a bench that is used for art/craft but also doubles as a backdrop or studio for this work. I have some appropriate lighting and a stand for my phone, which seems to be enough.

8) Other specialty stations

There are a few other special operations that I do frequently enough to warrant their own station. For instance, I do some glueing jobs in a “go-bar” deck, which uses kite rods to put clamping pressure on shapes that are difficult to clamp otherwise. I dedicate a bench to hold this deck, as well as a series of chisels, saws, a plane, a bench hook and a glue bottle that never leave this spot. I can brace all the musical instrument tops and backs here without having to prowl the shop looking for the right tool.

These dedicated workstations save me time by reducing the amount of setup and teardown. They also keep my main bench free, so I can have more projects in progress at a time. The main downside is that it requires more space than many hobby woodworkers have. It also can cost more money, as I have doubles of certain tools around the shop as well as more glue bottles, paper towels, etc… Hopefully you can apply these ideas to your own work and do your own math about time, space, money and efficiency. You won’t regret it.

Thanks for keeping the lights on…

A

While we were on vacation, Nicole and I did the last website and behind the scenes organization that it takes to release a new model, the Hearthstone banjo. This is a wood topped, short scale banjo and it sounds a like a banjo mixed with a classical guitar. The prototype was picked up by our old friend and repeat customer Chris Coyier who is testing it out at a summer of music campouts and festivals.

It took almost two years of slow work to make this happen, starting with a dream I had during my rest period after my first hand surgery. Designing the instrument, sourcing the right parts, making jigs and templates, imagining the process and building the prototype is just the beginning. Behind the scenes, Nicole has to figure out how to fit it into our website, customer emails and ordering system. Then we have to get started with the marketing. (Yeah right, like we have the time, money or expertise to actually do “marketing!”) Instead, I just make a video, do some photos, get it on the website, do some social media and send an email. Hopefully that’s enough to get a couple of orders. To be honest, the best marketing is just to get them into the world for people to play. It’s like scattering seeds, some of them will grow.

In the meantime, you can go here to get all the specs and details.

Thanks for keeping the lights on…

Aaron

Although I have been more home-bound the last few years, I have spent much of my adult life traveling. I have friends all over the world through my love of music, art and craft. I have a talent for being able to talk to whoever I sit next to at a party, eat what is put in front of me and take in the rich details of the place I am temporarily planted in. I have been “collected” by many groups of people over the years, gathered my own tribe around me and found a handful of places that feel comfortable, even if they aren’t actually home. We recently were asked to teach at a place I have been wanting to visit for many years, the John C Campbell Folk School.

The Folk School was started by Olive Campbell and Marguerite Butler in 1925 in Brasstown, NC. One their website, they state the following:

Our Vision

A community that awakens, enlivens, and enlightens the world.

Our Mission

The Folk School transforms lives, bringing people together in a nurturing environment for experiences in learning and community life that spark self-discovery.

Our Values

Joy

We bring originality, creativity and passion to all endeavors—we sing behind the plow.

Kindness

We treat everyone with respect, humility and warmth.

Stewardship

We honor the traditions and spirit of the Folk School as we guide its evolution and preserve it for the future.

Non-Competitive

We support and affirm each other in lifelong growth.

They teach classes on music, art, craft, dance, food, nature, agriculture and all the various ways they intersect. They are known as a repository of knowledge on traditional Appalachian folkways, but there is plenty of other stuff to learn there as well. Their motto is “We Sing Behind The Plow,” which encapsulates our family’s values of hard work, art, music and community building.

Nicole and were invited to teach there this summer as part of their “little/middle week,” which is one of two weeks a year where kids can take classes. She was hired to teach music to the littles and I was hired to teach ukulele to the middle/high school students. We only agreed to it if Henry could come along and take classes as well, which placed him into blacksmithing and book arts. The whole thing was dreamed upon by Virgina Mattox, who is a Beansprout customer/student and served as my teaching assistant. She lives in Brasstown and has worked/volunteered/studied there since the ‘90’s. Below you can see my two ukulele classes as well as Virginia and myself.

I think the whole camp had about 300 students and at least 50 staff. The energy was crazy during the day, as kids gathered for music, took classes, played around the festival barn and lived an un-plugged life. Below you can see some of the craft projects that they made. Unfortunately, we don’t have any videos of our class performances, as the kids can’t be on photo or video for privacy reasons.

At night, most kids went home, but lots of families, volunteers and staff stayed onsite, spread across the 300 acres in various houses, dorms, cabins and a main lodge. Every night had programing open to the public. This included a dance, jam session, open mic, movie night, song circle, campfires, etc…I sat in with the dance band and had a great time.

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This substack is laughably inconsistent and wide ranging, so I will start by thanking you for staying tuned. Here is an incomplete list of topics I promised to update you on that I have yet to complete.

1. The mystery wood from Hawaii that we are pretty sure is Milo.

2. The batch of three banjo ukes made all together, instead of spread out like I normally would.

3. My hands and physical health.

4. The Alder neck blanks drying in the loft.

5. Our trip to the John C Campbell Folk School

6. The Hearthstone/Wood topped banjo.

7. The Martin tenor guitar that Marianne gave us to fix up.

8. The Martin taro patch that Marianne lent me, which is attributed to Buster Keaton.

Are there others I am forgetting? Chime in and remind me, I hope to get to them soon, now that we are done with our festival/teaching season.

Thanks for keeping the lights on…

Aaron

***** If you are an international customer (outside of the US), you will be responsible for any customs fees or taxes imposed by your country. Additionally, we may have to add shipping fees depending on the rates we can get. Thanks! ******

When I worked for Mya-Moe, one of the best parts was Gordon and Char’s carefully designed build schedule. Each instrument had 14 steps and I did one step on every uke, every day. I had 14 in progress at a time, 1 for every step in the process. It kept the schedule moving like clockwork and we were proud to hit deadlines for customers to the day. This was novel for the time, as most builders just built to their own pace and you might have no idea when your uke would actually get delivered. With Mya-Moe, you ordered as much as a year in advance and we hit the mark, pretty much every time.

Here is an old pic from my bench during those days. Notice the build sheet above the uke. It had a QR code that I scanned every time I worked on a uke, so the customer could track the progress.

There were some behind the scenes things that helped it run this way. First, all the parts were made off site, at Ben and Kerry’s shops. I would open a drawer and it would be stocked with the parts I needed, like braces, bridges or neck blanks. When the drawer was empty, I restocked from the cabinet and ordered a new batch from Ben. This meant that the main shop didn’t have the table saw, band saw, jointer, planer, etc…that you need to process rough stock, they were at the other shops. Second, all “office” work was done in Gordon and Char’s house, during the business hours that I was in the shop. They did their shop work very early in the morning and were generally out of the way when I showed up on musician time, usually at 9am. I was not distracted by emails, message or phone calls. The whole shop was available, I almost never had to wait to use a machine, tool or workbench. Lastly, every machine, work station and tool box was stocked and setup for one job. I just moved from place to place around the shop, never having to tear down or reset a machine. Everything was just ready.

This was a great process, that taught me a lot and kept me focused and building. My days were 99% regimented and my work was done for the day when I finished the steps. I think you can still see the ghost of this process if you like at the Mya-Moe website, where the current owner still tracks his instruments in a similar way. As I write this, he seems to have two instruments in process, in our heyday, this page would have showed 28 for us.

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(The background that you are missing that ties this all together, is that Pete’s most famous model is called The Revelator.)

“A “revelation”…

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I use oil stones. I used to use Shapton water stones, but my lack of a sink in the shop and the need to frequently flatten them was not ideal for me. In 5 years, I wore through my main stone almost entirely to the glass. I also used a honing guide to set my angle, which was a bit of a hassle and a crutch, if I am being honest.

I decided to switch to oil stones for a few reasons: 1) I am old fashioned and romantic. 2) I don’t have a sink in the shop. 3) I inherited a few and wanted to try them out.

To get started, I listened to some advice from the folks at Mortise & Tenon Magazine and a YouTuber named Richard Maguire. (Check out his method here, if you have an extra 45 minutes) I would only need my bench grinder, a coarse stone, a fine stone and a strop. No guides, no jigs and less gear than most people use in late stage capitalism. I remembered that the owner of a British tool shop that I like uses the same method, so I wrote to him and asked him to pick out what I needed. I just looked back in my email and found the receipt. I actually bought three stones from him: a fine India stone (which is actually coarse for my work), a fine Arkansas stone and a piece of Welsh slate that is really fine. The first is a man made product, the last two are natural rocks lapped flat.

This was about $175 at the time, but will likely last me for many years, so it seemed like a bargain. I got to work sharpening free hand, without a jig and quickly got good enough at it. I have found lots of old tools that cut very well where the bevel was rounded and not very precise. This is the type of bevel I get with free hand sharpening and I find it to be very strong and durable compared to my previous method, which involved producing a hollow grind and a “micro bevel” that usually chipped or wore away quickly.

I actually have three sharpening stations now, first is the back/metal working room: a grinder, three stones, a strong light and some WD-40 for lubrication. In the drawer below are some curved and small stones, useful for uncommon tools.

Here is the small tray next to the main woodworking bench, with two small Arkansas stones and a strop. It mainly gets used for touchups.

Lastly, here is what I keep by my bench in the front setup room/studio/office: an Arkansas stone that came from my grandfather’s barn and a strop.

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Here are my tips:

1. Sharpen often. It takes less than a minute to refresh an edge, which saves you time by increasing the quality of your work. You can’t be good at free hand sharpening without practice.

2. Own fewer tools. Fewer tools means less maintenance and more time working. Keeping 12 chisels sharp is a significant drain compared to keeping 6 sharp.

3. Stick with one sharpening method and keep practicing. Practice is better than buying another jig, aid or gadget that promises better results.

4. Avoid the desire for mirror finishes and aerospace level sharpening. We are sharpening a tool, not going to the moon.

5. Read “Sharpen This” by Christopher Schwarz.

Thanks for keeping the lights on…

A

When I posted about it, I accidentally called it Milo, which caused some confusion. But, even without that mixup, we are not totally sure it is Ohi’a. Here is my set:

Other pieces of Milo seem to have more red in it, like this:

We have our friend Bart Potter on the case, who is a well known forester and sawyer in Hawaii. Kevin sent him some samples and he is trying to identify it right now. There is a chance that it is actually Lama wood, (Diospyros sandwicensis https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/forestry/plants/lama/) which is a kind of Ebony/Persimmon. This tracks with how it looks and feels on the bench. It is hard, close grained, a little oily and very dense.

Some folks have pointed out that there is also a wood called Ohai, which often gets typoed to Ohi’a. That wood is softer and more open grained, like Koa.

Why does this matter? For Kevin and I, we want to work with sustainable materials that we know the providence of. When something falls in our lap, we don’t want to waste it and we want to honor and understand the material, from tree to bench. Also, we want to honor materials that come from Hawaii in a special way. A lot of these timbers have been harvested and exploited by outsiders, with little thought to the health of Hawaii’s forests or people. We want to do better, which is why we try to connect to people like Bart, so we can try to do the right thing. Stay tuned as we try to sort this out.

Thanks for keeping the lights on…

A

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