Kanileʻa is pleased to announce two beautiful and dramatic new additions to our 2024 instrument lineup, the ʻIlikai and the Pōhaku. Made from solid Flamed Maple and Quilted Maple, these two new instruments are available in all scale lengths and are sure to turn heads with their looks and their tone.
Pōhaku
The dramatic black stain on this model gives it the name Pōhaku, or “Stone”. This stain picks up on the figuring of the solid Quilted Maple to give it a dramatic look to match its name, beautiful and mysterious like the lava rocks over all the islands.
The stained poplar position markers and logo are a fire red color for a splash of color on the neck.
Marvelous Maple
While solid Hawaiian Koa is the perfect tonewood for ʻukulele, Maple offers a tone which is truly different and compelling on these instruments. A dense tonewood, it tends to have a brighter tone than koa, with a distinctive punch and compression on the low end. Used as tonewood by luthiers for hundreds of years, we are proud to make our first Maple Kanileʻa.