Uke Makers: Donna LoPrinzi Carries on her Father’s Legacy of Hand-Built Instruments
BY NICOLAS GRIZZLE | FROM THE SPRING 2026 ISSUE OF UKULELE MAGAZINE
Each instrument made by Donna LoPrinzi begins its life in her shop as a flat piece of wood. The sides are all bent by hand over a hot metal pipe before being placed in a mold to seal in their shape. With just one assistant who helps prep the wood blanks, she’s incredibly prolific, making almost 200 ukes and about 50 guitars per year for Augustino LoPrinzi Guitars and Ukuleles. In her words, it’s a real “old-school” process.
Her father, Augustino LoPrinzi, started the business in New Jersey in 1958. He was a barber, because his father was a barber. But his love for building guitars won out, and he soon went from building them in his off time in the back room of the barber shop to starting his own guitar company. He went on to become a master luthier specializing in classical guitars. But it was ukulele legend Herb Ohta who got him started making ukes with a custom order out of the blue in the early 2000s.
Donna LoPrinzi took after her father, but it took some convincing before he agreed to let her join in the family business. She took to it like a natural, though, and today she runs the company while her father enjoys his retirement.
Her style is consistent with her father’s focus on the instrument being made with the player in mind. “I’m more concentrated on the sound of the instrument and the playability,” she says with a slight New Jersey accent from her shop in Clearwater, Florida. “I just want it to play good, sound good, and I want it to be affordable so more people can enjoy it. I don’t want to be in a class where only a certain amount of people can afford the high-end instrument. I’m fortunate enough to do something that I absolutely love, so I’m happy if I can make a living.”
Her standard ukes—all handmade—run from $600 for a basic concert size to about $1,200 for one with all the bells and whistles, like custom binding and purfling, abalone rosettes and fret markers, etc.
I caught up with LoPrinzi via Zoom about taking on the family business, bending wood on the old stovepipe that came from a junkyard 50 years ago, and the uke that got away.
How did you get started in lutherie?
Well, my father was a luthier. Growing up, in the summers my siblings and I worked in the shop. When we got in trouble, our punishment was we had to go work at the shop [laughs]. I have a brother and sister who hated it. But I always enjoyed when we got to work in the shop.
Later on I did the “normal” things—I don’t know if I should say normal—that women would do, you know, go out, get the office job, and all. And it just wasn’t for me. I liked working with my hands. So I kept on my dad and said, “Let me come work for you for a while.” And that’s how it started. He taught me. Our primary business was always guitars, mostly classical. It’s been 32 years that I’ve been in it. He’s retired, but I’m still here.
How old were you when you went back to lutherie?
In my mid-20s. Maybe 25 or 26, somewhere in there.
What was your father’s reaction to that decision?
He was he wasn’t so hip on it at first, only because both my brother and my sister are older than me, and both of them tried it. After he invested a lot of time trying to teach them things, it just didn’t work out. So when it came to me, he was a little discouraged, like it was just going to be another waste of time and I wouldn’t want to do it.
It actually was my mother that finally said, look, she can do it. At the time I was doing a lot of stuff in the house—woodworking, that kind of stuff. And he always thought it was my husband doing all the work in the house, but it was actually me doing it! So my mom just kept saying, Why don’t you give her a chance and teach her? Soon as he started, he realized that it was different.
It actually rejuvenated him, because at that time he was ready to retire. And then when he saw how I took to it, he ended up staying for ten more years. And then he finally said, “You know, I think you can take over this business and you don’t need me here anymore.” So that’s when he retired.
Do you have a similar approach to building as your father did?
There are some things that I do a little differently. But on the whole, I still pretty much do things the same way he’s always done them. We’re a little more old-school, and I kind of like that. I probably have a few more modern machines than he used to use, like a CNC machine that I mainly use for parts. But other than that, my building style is all the same.
And how about the end product? Are your ukuleles and guitars similar to what he was making?
Yes, especially the guitars. They have the same feel, the necks and all that. We’re known for our very thin, slim ukulele necks; that has always stayed the same. The only thing that I have maybe ventured into a little more than he ever did is doing appointments on the instruments and some of the new things, like the arm rests, that have come around since he retired.
Tell me more about your neck style.
Our necks are a little flatter on the back and we feel that they’re easier to play because you’re able to set your thumb. It’s kind of like the concept of a classical guitar. A lot of necks out there have more of a C-shape. We feel the flatter neck is a little more comfortable. But you’re either going to really like it or you’re not. And that’s OK—that’s why there are so many different instruments out there.
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How did your father get started doing this? Building guitars is a very different career path than cutting hair . . .
He started very young. He was taking violin lessons, and he didn’t really like playing it. He was more intrigued on how the instrument was built, so he would take it apart between his lessons, and sometimes he didn’t get it back together in time! His father gave him a little workshop in the back of the barber shop where he could play with his instruments, and that that’s how it started. He would go get junky instruments or whatever, take them apart, and see how they were built.
He started building in 1958. He started with classical guitars, and would build guitars in the back of his barber shop. But when the guitars were taking off and he was able to make a living building guitars, of course he stopped with the hair and went on to build the guitars.
I read that the company name has changed a couple times. What’s the history of the company and the story behind the name change?
I want to say it was like 1970 when my dad started the LoPrinzi guitar factory. They were still all handmade, but it was a bigger company. I think they might have had about 80 employees at that time. That was primarily just steel-string guitars. Then
in 1975, he sold that company to AMF—you know, like the Harley-Davidson AMF Company. And then literally right next door, he opened up the Augustino Guitar Company.
In 1978 we moved to Florida (from New Jersey). In the early ’80s LoPrinzi Guitars had shut down—AMF had closed the company. The guy who ran it came to Florida and wanted my dad to repair one of his instruments. So they worked out a deal. My dad said OK, I’ll repair your instrument if you give me my name back. And that’s how he got the LoPrinzi name back.
Is there a ukulele you’ve made that is particularly memorable for you?
One ukulele that stands out in my mind, that I thought was probably one of the best, that I truly loved and wish I wasn’t building for somebody else, was a baritone with Brazilian rosewood and a cedar top. And that was just probably one of the sweetest sounding instruments I’ve ever heard.
Since the actual structure of your instruments didn’t really change and the appointments don’t have an effect on the sound, was it just the tonewoods that made that instrument special?
Definitely, the tonewoods will change the sound. And every piece of wood is different. The Brazilian rosewood I used on that instrument was from a stash that my dad had—and I still have a few sets of—from the ’60s. That Brazilian rosewood is a lot different than the Brazilian rosewood that’s floating around today. You can have two exact same woods, two mahogany ukes, say, and sometimes they might be close, but they’ll sound just a little bit different. And that’s because of the wood itself.
How many instruments do you make per year?
I probably do about 250 instruments a year. I would say probably 70 percent of that is ukuleles, because I can build a lot more ukuleles in the same time it takes me to build one guitar.
That’s 175 ukuleles per year! How are you personally making all those—or do you have staff helping you with that?
I do all the building here. I have one employee and he does all the cutting of the wood, and he’ll get that all prepped because I buy most of it in slabs or in billets and we cut it up ourselves. But as far as the building, I do all the building.
How are you able to make them so quickly?
Well, the thing is that there’s always 50 to 60 instruments at some stage or another in the shop. It’s more like a factory in here even though it’s just one person. The instruments move along at different stations, and in the factory you’ve got different people doing different things. Well, in here, I move along. You have different stations that are set up for different jobs, but I’m moving along all the time. There’s always something that has to dry, so there’s no downtime—when something’s drying, I’m right onto something else.
What kind of things do you prioritize with your builds?
My priority is more about sound. I want an affordable instrument that sounds good. I do some custom work, and it does take longer to do the custom work. For me personally, less is more. I’m not a person who likes all the real gaudy looking instruments. I like just simple appointments.
What do you aim for in terms of the sound?
I like to make sure that they have sustain. I like to bring the sweetness out of it. With certain woods, it’s a little tougher because of the wood itself. But I just want a nice, good, clear sound. I don’t like a muddled-sounding instrument. And I don’t want it to look bad—the work has got to be clean. But I just want the quality of the sound to be there, not just hear some strings bouncing off a piece of wood.
Are there like particular tonewoods that you like to work with?
How about if I put it this way . . . There’s ones I don’t prefer [laughs].
Oh yeah? What are some of those?
Some of the real curly woods, like the real curly koa and stuff like that. It’s not that I don’t like it, you just have to be more careful. Sometimes Brazilian rosewoods. Some woods are a little more brittle. Some of the curly woods, especially when you’re bending sides, tend to start peeling apart a little bit, not necessarily cracking, but peeling. Those are some that I don’t particularly care for because you have to slow down what you’re doing, and I do everything the old-fashioned way. Every side is bent over a hot iron. I don’t use the molds with the heating blankets and all that.
It seems like bending by hand like that would take longer . . .
It doesn’t take me longer. When I was taught, my father would never allow one of those machines in the shop, the benders. He would never let me use one because he said then you’re restricted to whatever that mold is in that machine. If you want to change it, then you have to have a new mold made. If you bend, all you’ve got to do is make an outline. You have to make a mold, but it’s a lot easier than making a mold for those machines. Then you can bend whatever you want, any shape you want. You’re not limited.
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So, of course, later I got one of those machines and I didn’t like it. It just took too long. I could bend it by hand a lot faster than I could on that machine. Plus, then I’m taking up all this space to have all these different molds. So I went right back to the same bending iron he had. It’s got to be at least 50, maybe even 60 years old, and it’s still going.
What’s that process like?
My dad went to a junkyard, got a heating element out of an old stove, got a metal pipe and just cut it in half, and then he soldered it together or however he did it, and made a little stand for it. It’s just a half of an iron pipe, and it’s got a heating element in it. And you plug it in, it heats up, and you just wet the wood—sometimes, depending on what it is I may soak the wood in water for maybe about an hour or so—and then literally bend it over.
There’s a technique to it. You just can’t start bending. As you’re bending, you’ve got to give a little bit. It seems like I could bend a set in less than five minutes, and on one of the bending machines it’s taking me five minutes or 15 minutes just to set it up.
When I bend it, then the wood’s got to dry and then I clamp it in the mold. So every one is going in the same molds. And then once it dries, it’s got the shape just like the other method.
What’s your favorite thing about making ukuleles?
I think my favorite thing is watching the progress of an instrument. Because you have an idea all throughout the build how the instrument is going to sound, but then when you get to string it up at the end, and you finally get to hear the sound of that instrument, that’s probably the best part for me.
You know, we’re starting with the raw material—just the hunk of wood—and then at the end there’s music coming out of this instrument. And you get to listen to what it sounds like—but then two minutes later it’s heading out the door.
