Hi, my name is Karl Monetti. I have been a veterinarian for 36 years, a guitar player for 50 years, a woodbutcher for 45 years, working with wood since age 16, building gunstocks for myself and a few friends. When I move to Alaska in 1971 and got my hands on a double bit axe and a chain saw for the first time, I was in hog heaven. Out came whole houses, log cabins, dog sleds, road graders, sledges. I also got into carving soapstone figures at the same time. I have always admired good guitars and felt that the level of expertise required was far above anything I could ever achieve. Still, on a visit to Hawaii to visit my daughter years ago, I bought two thick koa boards, 5/4 by 13 inches by 4 feet long, with the idea of someday building a guitar from them.

That wood sat in my basement for over 8 years. I was really dreading the idea of ruining that beautiful wood, and I was not looking forward to trying to connect a skinny neck to a flimsy box; the percieved weak spot in my imagination. I had actually thought of this problem before I purchased the wood, for I had seen a Weisenborn the afternoon before at a luthier in Hilo. He had an exploded one in his shop (just taken apart to be fully rebuilt). As you may know, Herman Weissenborn completely avoided the neck/body joint back in the 1920’s by continuing the sides all the way to the nut, making a hollow box of the whole guitar. (Check out the picture page) This seemed to me to be the way to go, and I bought the wood in 4 food lenghts to accomodate building just such a guitar. Nevermind I had never played lap steel in my life, I figured I’d build it first and that would give me the reason to learn how to play it. Still, it took 8 years to get up the nerve to even have the wood sliced into usable thicknesses.

I had drawn some plans from the exploded Weissenborn in Hilo, and with a set from a modern luthier supply house I went to work; 3 months later I had a new guitar. I found the process quite enjoyable, and, with the purchase of a few basic tools, it had been a smoothe event. The following month, on a trip, I was playing my Martin Backpacker guitar, which my wife had given me 15 years ago to help support my habit while travelling. I wondered if I could not make a guitar for travel that would sound better and be easier to play than what I had. Would a hollow neck bring out more sound? Could I make a hollow necked, frettable guitar? Had anyone ever done so?

On our return home I did some searches and found no evidence of any hollow necked frettable guitars. So, I set out to build one. I decided to use the Weissenborn body shape and style, again shying away from a neck/body joint. I figured the neck would have to be somewhat thick for stability, but could not be totally hollow like the Weissenborn.

I decided to build the guitar around a solid piece of maple 2” X 2” X16”, with a large V cut out of the one end, tapering to nothing at the other end. This would be my hollow neck. For strength I decided to glue the sides, back and top directly to the neck block, then glue the fretboard to the top. I would then contour the sides of the neck opposite the fretboard to make a shape that was playable. I knew from the neck on the backpacker that I could get away with a fairly thick neck and still have it be playable. I already had some walnut and koa sliced into backs and sides, so I made the guitar of that. I even put an expensive pickup system in it, just in case it did work. To be honest, i did not think it would work, so I hurried the building just to find out. That haste cost me some cosmetic mistakes, but also made me understand how forgiving working with wood can be. I was done with the prototype in just over a week, and I could not wait to string it up.

I cannot begin to tell you what I felt when I first played it. The sound was so full, the evertones incredible, the guitar just rang for what seemed like minutes. I was, and still am, totally awed. I have no idea what makes these little guys sound so good, but I defintely accomplished my goal. Since then I have carried it as my travel guitar, and everywhere I go I get comments on the looks and the sound. Several people began asking for one of their own. You know,”...if you ever get to makin’ them things, gimme a call.” Well, since that first one I have made 3 more in the development stage. Now I can say I have hit upon the final design and have gotten better at my techniques to the point I now feel comfortable selling a few.

I consider myself a modest, honest person. I wanted to make something that sounded better than my trusty dusty Backpacker. I feel I accomplished that. I am not the best craftsman in the world; there’s nothing fancy about these guitars, but I do believe I have come up with something very functional that is structurally sound and really cool looking, and that sounds very good. At a recent guitar camp in Hawaii I had the opportunity to hear it played by someone else along with 6 or 7 other travel or compact guitars, and most of the listeners felt it was among the top performers. And, if you plug in at all, I know you will like the K&K sound. For structural reasons the neck is a bit fat, making it a bit harder to use your thumb over the top in some instances, but I am convinced the hollow neck plays a very important role in the sound of the instrument.

As with any guitar, the final test is in the playing and listening, so I have put together a few video and audio clips of my son playing two of his tunes, and me playing a few hawaiian and slide tunes as well so you can get an idea of how it sounds acoustically.

You may wonder about the name. When I first brought it inside to show my wife, she took one look at the headstock and proclaimed...”Medusa!”

 

	At the 2008 winter Aloha camp on Molokai, I was asked to build a ukulele with a hollow neck, similar to my guitar. I designed such a beast, and my wife, Susan, promptly appropriated the first one, which she again named; this time, Green Dot, for the fretboard markers. Thus the Green Dot ukulele was born.
I "borrowed" Susan's uke to attend a local gathering of Hawaiian musicians (yes, there are Hawaiians living in Alaska!) and from the first strum, I got three orders for more. And, my son, an avid guitarist who never played a uke, visited for Thanksgiving and played Green Dot #1 for 4 days straight. Green Dot #4 became his Christmas gift:] Another picture of Green Dot #4 on the Picture page.
	"I found an old beat up instrument case in the basement of a local music store. It appeared the right size for a tenor uke. When the owner offered it to me for free, I jumped at it. Unfortunately, though the tenor uke fit width and length wise, it was about 1/2 inch too deep, and the lid would not close. Of course, there was only one thing to do; build an instrument to fit the case. I was not sure what this would be, but I used the longest scale I could fit in the case (20.25 inches) and decided as I went along it would be strung with steel strings like a guitar. This picture shows the case with the top cut to fit it snugly."

 

"Here is the finished product. I think the word Guituke is already taken, but that is my name for it at present. Other pictures are on the Picture page"