Brad Kahabka Brings Artistic Flair to the Ohana Custom Shop

BY NICOLAS GRIZZLE | FROM THE SPRING 2025 ISSUE OF UKULELE MAGAZINE

Brad Kahabka is an unusual candidate for this column. Usually, we feature solo luthiers who run their own business. In this interesting case the luthier is still a one-man operation but with the support of a larger company. That stability allows him to spend time on more artistic creations while honing his craft at making great-sounding instruments. 

The Ohana Custom Shop is a small section within the large Ohana warehouse, located an hour away from Disneyland in Southern California. From his neatly organized workbench with music pumping out of a nearby Bluetooth speaker, Kahabka imagines and builds four-string joy machines with an artist’s eye for detail and creativity. 

His circuitous and self-taught route to lutherie, a career that began in earnest just four years ago, includes a bachelor’s degree in fine arts (and three other academic degrees), work as a mechanical engineer, and even a stint in the U.S. Army. “I don’t really think of myself as a woodworker, but more of a designer, artist, fabricator all rolled into one,” says Kahabka. “I did my own research and did things the way that I thought they should be done. And I feel like I always have something else to learn.”

During a tour of his shop last year, Kahabka demonstrated to me how he uses a video game controller to control a complex CNC router for time-consuming tasks like shaping necks and cutting inlays. He also showed some of his artistic creations, including one uke made of jigsaw puzzle–shaped inlays and one with an intricate inlay of a seagull (from the point of view of a hot dog about to be swooped out of its bun).

“I think I have a mix of modern and traditional,” he says. “The machinery I have is very modern, like CNC machines and laser cutters. But still, everything’s going to be put together by hand.”

I caught up with Kahabka a year after my initial tour to see how things were going in the shop. It was no surprise to learn that he’s been busy with new designs inspired by his paintings and drawings, with a few new toys to help bring them to life.

Tell me about the ukuleles you make. Do you have a style or an ethos you imbue into them?

I have more of a guitar performance background, so instrument building is pretty new to me. I’m more of a solid-body electric player, more punk and metal stuff. I think for my building, my electric nature comes through. Like my neck profiles, which tend to be on the thinner side rather than big, chunky acoustic necks. And I try to include radiused backs and comfort edges—those kinds of things you normally see on more electric instruments.

How did you get started building instruments? And what were some of your stops along the way before that?

Most recently, I went to school at Cal State Long Beach for fine arts. But I have tried mechanical engineering many times throughout the years, like when I was straight out of high school. I had started at Long Beach City College and [Ohana] had actually posted on their job board for an instrument technician. I’d worked in music stores in the past and I have a music background, so I applied and got the job. 

Basically, the whole time I was working at Ohana doing instrument setups, I was in school. 

Then the Pandemic hit during my graduating semester at CSU Long Beach, which was unfortunate because it took away my studio; I was doing all these big sculptural projects and large-scale paintings, and I couldn’t really do any of that anymore. After I graduated, I needed to be in a creative field because there are so many artists I know that get an arts degree and then go and do accounting or something totally different. So I talked to Louis [Wu, Ohana founder] and I said, ‘Why don’t we just build a shop? I can build stuff, and I have an art degree.’ He had all this wood that he’d been collecting over the years and just said, ‘OK.’ I gave him a baseline of what equipment I needed and then I started building the shop from there. I took apart some instruments that we had and kind of reverse-engineered them, but changed things to the way I would like them to be.

I think one of the big things for me was to be able to have a repeatable way of doing things. I didn’t just want to carve one single neck and have it be random every time. I knew I was just going to be one person back here, so I had to have a system where I could make everything easier on myself. I ended up getting Fusion 360, which is a 3D modeling program that pairs with the CNC router, and then basically for the next year I taught myself how to do 3D modeling with CAD and CAM software. Which is funny, because that’s what I started with when I was 18 and I went to college for engineering.

I’ve made mechanical parts in the program and tools for myself, but that’s also where I do all my drawings for my inlay work. I have the creative freedom that I never had when I was pursuing engineering all those years ago.

How do you get your drawings into the computer program?

I do it a couple of different ways. Sometimes I will physically draw something on paper and then I’ll take a picture of it, upload it into the computer, and basically just retrace over everything I drew in the computer. Or sometimes I will upload reference photos of something I’m going to be working on. 

Tell me a little bit about the technology you use. When I toured your shop last year, I remember seeing a video game controller with CNC machine . . .

The video game controller I use to jog the machine around the workspace. Without it, usually you’re using the arrow key on a keyboard and it’s just very slow. I have two CNCs now. It takes like four or five hours just to make one neck, and a fretboard can take about the same amount of time. So I can do inlay work, or bridge work, or make jigs and molds and one machine isn’t tied up for the entire day.

Typically, I’ll take a couple days out of a week, or a whole week sometimes, just to make parts. I’ll make five or ten necks in a row, and I’ll make sure I have at least a dozen bridges on hand. And the little [Ohana Custom Shop] headstock inlays take about 45 minutes apiece. So I have a system now where my shelves are sort of stocked with things that I’ve already made ahead of time. 

That sounds like an engineer’s mindset.

Yeah, exactly. I’ve always fought with myself over engineering versus creativity mindset. And I have two parts of my personality that I think I’m always fighting with. Creativity kind of wins, but practicality is always in the back of my mind, too.

What was your experience working with wood before this?

Pretty much just chopping it for firewood [laughs]. I grew up in New York, in the suburbs, and we had a wood stove in my house, so we always had to have wood for wintertime. But other than that, zero. In my sculpture classes at CSU Long Beach, I think what that whole art program teaches you is to be able to work with any medium and make it into what you want it to be. They build in a critical thinking mindset where you just come up with creative solutions. I think that translated very well into woodworking because I have to make molds and all these tools in order to make the instrument itself. 

I come at it from more of an artistic builder standpoint than a pure woodworking standpoint. I don’t really know traditional woodworking techniques like cabinet making or joinery or that sort of thing. 

Some of the ukuleles I’ve seen coming out of the shop are quite creative. Is that something you had in mind from the beginning? 

I think that was my plan in the back of my mind, even if I didn’t realize it. I didn’t necessarily have a burning desire for instrument making; I didn’t come out of the womb and say, “I want to be an instrument maker,” you know? I think the part that really keeps me excited about it is the artwork and making each one different. Looking at an instrument, you can turn it around in your hands and see something you haven’t seen before—a little inlay here, another little touch there—it kind of turns it into something more than just an instrument. The physical instrument, just a bare bones, plain instrument, isn’t too exciting to me from a technical and building and creative standpoint. I like
the functional aspect of it, and that I’m making functional art. 

Do your instruments have a certain kind of sound? Are there sonic qualities that you aim for?

From the beginning, I had employed a larger lower bout, because I know that’s where most of the projection comes from. I had also put a radius on the back and made the bottom a little bit thicker than the top. My idea was to kind of boost the volume and keep it more in the mid-to-low-frequency range. Ukes are often thought of as toy instruments, and I wanted to come at it as making the most professional-sounding thing that I am capable of making. The number one thing people have said about my instruments is the sustain is incredible. And the woods do make a difference.

Is there a trick to making an instrument sustain longer?

I don’t know if there’s a trick. The thing is, you never know until you put all this stuff together. You can be working on something for a month and then at the end, when you put it together, it might not sound like you wanted it to sound. And I’ve had that happen with different woods; different woods have different tonal qualities.

I think one of my biggest things is to not overbuild. I know a lot of guitar makers that have become ukulele makers who tend to build them like they’re building a guitar, and I think they’re over-braced and there’s just too much wood involved and they’re probably a little too thick all around. The headstocks tend to be chunky and bulky, and kind of weigh the instruments down. 

I try to make them as delicate as I can, but as strong as I can at the same time. The number one thing I keep in the back of my mind when I’m making these is just to not overbuild the instrument. Keep the weight down, keep it structurally sound and tight. And then, of course, the radiused back, which I think helps a lot as far as the sustain and the overall depth of sound you get out of the instrument.

You mentioned an art degree and other college experience, how many degrees do you have in total?

I have the art degree, two associates degrees, a bachelor’s of performance degree (guitar), and some other college credits. That’s it so far. We’ll see what happens in the future.

Do you still play guitar?

I do, but not as much as I want to. The funny thing about art is it takes forever to do a lot of it, and just learning this job took up so much of my time. I was doing 3D modeling at home because I just knew if I didn’t do this on my own it would never get done. For that first year I was just working here and going home and programming my butt off.

Do you have a favorite song you like to play on ukulele, even to just test a finished instrument?

I had written some random riffs when I first picked it up, and I recently just started learning the chords. I guess I prefer baritone because tuning-wise it’s similar to guitar. There was an Avenged Sevenfold (guitar) solo I could play on the uke. That’s probably one of my go-to things if I want to be fancy about it.

Are you going to start a uke metal band? Because I would be so into that!

That would be great. It’s funny you mentioned that because I want to make a solid-body electric uke . . .

What are some of your favorite instruments you’ve made so far?

I did one that has a seagull inlay. I think that one was one of my favorites just because of the wood that it’s made out of and the inlay was, at the time, I think the most complex one that I’d done. It hits close to home because that’s a scene of the Santa Monica pier, and when I was in college I ended up buying this little 1985 Honda scooter and I would drive it down the 10 freeway like an idiot straight to Santa Monica.

And the puzzle one was popular. I’m going to use a similar technique for one coming up that I want to start building. Traditionally, builders keep their soundholes when they cut them out. So I just have a pile of soundholes that I’m going to use to make a bunch of bubbles. It’s going to be similar to the puzzle, but I’m going to just call it “The Bubble.” One of the paintings I did is a self-portrait of me scuba diving with all the bubbles coming out of my regulator, so I’m going to take that picture and put that on the fretboard. 

What are some other things you’ve been working on? 

You know “the Tree,” the famous source of wood? [The Tree is a single, ancient, massive mahogany tree legendary among luthiers for its high-quality wood.] I’ve got a piece of that for the back and the sides, and the top is spruce. But then to match that, the fretboard inlay is a laser cutout of a tree. The drawing was insanely complex, and it took forever to cut all this out. 

Another one I just finished is for Bernadette [of the popular YouTube channel Bernadette Teaches Music]. It’s going to be her own Custom Shop model. She picked a flower she liked [for the inlay], and I did some vines. I wanted a simple little touch of class.

How much of your work is custom orders and how much results in the “dealer models” available in stores? 

At the moment the custom orders are more rare. The way I have it going right now is I always have a couple of dealer models going, so it works out to where at certain stages I can take a break and work on an inlay for something. It gives my brain a break, too, not having to just constantly be making inlays and all these drawings and figuring out new ideas. 

What’s weird is that I started this all kind of backwards, because in the beginning the plan was to do satin-finished, plain koa instruments. But at one point I decided I was going to do an inlay, so I made this super fancy octopus fretboard just to see if I could do it. I don’t think I even had a full instrument built yet and I was like, I’m just doing this inlay. And that was one of the first ones that sold. 

From that point on, my focus was more on the artwork and the creativity. I don’t want to pump out 20 ukes a month or however many I can; I want to keep the quality and the artwork in the instruments.

How does it feel to have that kind of creative freedom at this point in your career?

I was in the army for a couple of years doing diesel mechanic work, and I’ve always bounced around in the mechanical engineering world, and I never had the creative freedom to do what I wanted to do. I’m still bound to make instruments, but the creative freedom part is great because I’ll just randomly have thoughts at 5:00 in the morning or something, like that bubble one, and I’m just going to make it happen. And we’ll see what happens. It’s cool just to know all of this came out of my own brain.