I’d been quietly coveting the BU conveyed by pictures Simon Brown (Uke Restoration Barn) had posted ages back when he was having a clear out of instruments. He seems to be dealing with a lot of high-end classic instruments now and his quote of ‘I think it is the closest uke i have found to a ub-1‘ was gnawing at me. It has a tiny 6″ pot and is under 20″ long – it would be under 19″ with a simpler top to the headstock. With no BU at home now, I eventually came to my senses and bought it as this was a lot more reasonable that a UB-1. And his position of not wanting to give it away also made me realise he still valued its qualities. He summarised: ‘it is a handmade instrument. Made by a small scale maker (can’t remember his name) He does take his ukes to the GFS to sell, and they are well received. Your one was a prototype size, made ideally for a child. That’s about all I can tell you about it.’ So, what is it like? It is 12.5″ scale length, the same as the UB-1 (so technically a sub-soprano/sopranino; an Ohana SK21 is about 12″ – although nowhere near the 11″ of something like a sopranissimo pocket uke). It played nicely on D tuning with Simon’s GHS Clears which he fits on restored instruments. The neck isn’t quite as well thought out as the UB-1, as the bridge is a bit closer to the edge of the pot than desirable. The ‘prototype’ status accounts for fairly rough fretwork and fretboard – and its need of a good fret dressing. 
But I am happy! I started to research UB-1 tuning, as whilst D tuning would make a good beach instrument, I really want this to hold its own with others and I’m not adept enough to re-learn my chords to transpose into D. Consulting Jake Wildwood revealed that some tenor strings would likely have it singing in C, and I had some (likely fake) Aquila Tenors lying around, which I fitted to see. Sure enough, an acceptable GCEA resulted from the increased tension, and with a rudimentary fret dress (rubbing a file over the fretboard to take off the high points, then a quick wirewool and some superglue into two loose frets) and a new bridge better able to take the steep angle to the rear, it was ready for action. I had a bit of mahogany lying around so have fashioned a rear resonator which stops the little guy damping itself out against one’s clothing.
Check out Simon’s latest interesting BUs here: http://ukulelerestorationbarn.blogspot.co.uk A nice Gibson UB-1 at Jake Wildwood’s Antebellum for comparison, here: http://antebelluminstruments.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/c1930-gibson-ub-1-banjo-ukulele.html The UB-1 has no pole inside and has a far thicker-walled pot and is obviously a classic instrument.
Ukulele 