Uke Makers: Tomas Braverman Draws from his Furniture-Making Background to Craft Museum-Quality Ukuleles in Hawaii

BY BLAIR JACKSON | FROM THE WINTER 2025 ISSUE OF UKULELE MAGAZINE

On my most recent trip to Kauai, I was wandering around the shops in the small town of Hanalei, on the lush and beautiful north shore, and drifted into Havaiki, a wonderful gallery/store filled with exquisite pieces of tribal art from the island nations of Oceania. I had been to Havaiki once before a decade earlier and been thoroughly impressed by its museum-worthy collection of both historic and contemporary artworks and objets, mostly from Hawaii and various other Pacific locales. On this visit, though, what struck me the second I walked through the front door was a gorgeous all-koa ukulele, sitting alone on a stand, right in the middle of the room. It fit right in with the surrounding wooden carvings—some hundreds of years old—and Oceanic wall hangings. It was a work of art for sure, but also, I suspected, a damn fine musical instrument.

Through the gallery’s owner I was able to track down the maker of that ukulele who, as fate would have it, has been living on Kauai since 1993, crafting a few ukuleles a year in his workshop in his home in Anahola, another charming beach town 19 miles southeast of Hanalei.  His name is Tomas Braverman, a friendly but low-key gent of 85 who made his name as a high-end custom furniture maker in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, based out of L.A. (where he was born and grew up). He studied art and design at UCLA, and at some point early on, he connected with a Mexican cabinet maker named Nicholas Vera, who mentored young Braverman in Mexican colonial style, which fit in with Southern California taste. 

Braverman made many trips to Mexico and also studied intensively in Spain, learning in Seville from master woodcarver Antonio Rodriguez Garcia and others he met along the way. He became known for his intricately carved, Spanish-influenced furniture, windows, doors, and gates—many of them enormous—and over time began to attract a celebrity clientele in Southern California. It started with actor Larry Hagman, star of the massively popular TV series Dallas, who bought literally dozens of custom pieces from Braverman over 30 years. Other “name” clients included actors Rock Hudson, Harry Hamlin, and Robert Wagner, as well as the noted philanthropist and art collector Max Palevsky.

Another important  character in Braverman’s story is his wife, Kiyo, who, besides being mother to their two grown children, has also been instrumental in the carver’s work for decades, developing finishes instrumental in the fine patinas of his pieces. He has also helped mentor his son Tony, who has developed into a fine craftsman himself.

I caught up with Braverman by phone in early September to learn more about this unique woodworker and his unusual path to making fine ukuleles—which usually sell for $3,500 to $5,000 each.

It seems like a unifying thread among uke makers I’ve interviewed is a love of wood, a love of crafting wood. I understand that you started your career in woodworking with furniture. Can you talk a little how you transitioned to being an instrument builder?

I think that as I got older, the lifting of the heavy woods and things like that sort of became too much for me. So about 15 years ago, I completely stopped the furniture and I thought I was going to retire. But there was a well-known ukulele maker here on Kauai, Mickey Sussman, who approached me and said, “Tom, since you’re a woodworker, would you like me to show you how to build a ukulele?” And I said, “Sure, why not?” So I took his class, and I became smitten with it. 

You’re not a player, right?

Well, let’s put it this way: I used to play flamenco guitar. I got to where I would say I was relatively competent. I used to play in restaurants and I used to teach, and so on. I just love flamenco. It’s very exciting music. I did that for a while, and then I had an accident. I injured one of my fingers quite badly, and the first thing that I felt was that I would not able to play anymore. 

Did you actually lose a finger?

I lost an inch off my index finger of my left hand. 

Whoa, that’s rough!

Yeah, but it didn’t affect me much. When you’ve done something for 60 years, that’s a long time. I’ve done it. I know how to do it.

It’s certainly impressive that you’re still at it, long after most people have fully retired.

Well, I still move around a lot. I walk maybe four miles a week, and I swim three miles a week. So I try to keep healthy.

When you were learning the craft of building ukuleles, did you look at existing brands to learn about the instrument, or was there anything else that you used to inform your opinion about, say, what makes an ukulele have good tone? 

Not really. But let me say this first: I studied design at UCLA, and I studied in Spain for many years. When I was making furniture, I studied design. So that’s as much a part of my desire to make ukuleles as it is playing them. I can play, I would say, fairly well, but I wouldn’t consider myself a professional by any means. I love the sound of it. And of course, living in Hawaii, ukuleles are very popular; lots of people, play them.

So, when Mickey Sussman approached me, he asked me if I wanted to learn from him. I worked with him for about three weeks. And during that time, because of my prior knowledge of woodworking, I was able to adapt fairly easily to making instruments. I really enjoyed it. One thing that I really liked about is the intricacy of it. It looked like it might be simple, but it involved inlay, and putting on the rosettes, and the binding, and all that kind of stuff, which really appealed to me. And besides that, it was lighter and it was easier to handle than the furniture I had been making. My interest in the guitar and in string instruments also made it a very natural transition for me. 

Did you ever build a guitar?

I never did. I always thought I wanted to, but it never happened. I haven’t done it. I doubt I will.

Are you fairly well-versed in Hawaiian music, in terms of the history and all that? And the ukulele’s role? Do you know the reputation of the early Martin ukes of yesteryear, or contemporary custom makers—which artists buy from whom, and all that?

Unfortunately, I do not. I don’t know any Hawaiian music. I don’t play any Hawaiian music on the uke.

I just sort of jumped in to making them, and I enjoyed it so much, I just sat there and looked at it for a while and I said, “You know, I never thought I would be able to do this.” So when this opportunity came along, I took it. There was another gentleman on the island named Paul Arrington who’s a retired surgeon who decided to start making ukuleles maybe 30 years ago. I found out about him, and I probably learned as much from him as I did from Mr. Sussman. 

I just love building stuff. That’s the bottom line. I would rather build stuff, work with my hands, than do anything, any activity that I know. When I’m in the shop, I’m gone—I’m in another world. I might go in there at, say, nine o’clock in the morning, and I may not leave until midnight! It’s just something that I really can become absorbed in and enjoy the feeling of the wood and putting something together and then sitting down and making music with it. 

And I think that’s one thing that came from, I would say, a relatively simple upbringing in Los Angeles. My mother was from the Deep South, from Mississippi, and she was a totally hands-on person. She came from a farm in the country and
she could make anything. So I grew up watching her make things. 

When I was a kid, one time I said to her, “I would like a little truck, a little wooden truck. Will you buy me one.” And she said, “If you want one, I’ll buy you the tools
and you make it!” So she bought me a little electric table-model jigsaw and a little teeny table saw, and I just started experimenting and I made [a truck]! 

Wow, that’s amazing! Do you still use the jigsaw for building your ukes?

That particular jigsaw I don’t have anymore. I don’t know what happened to it along the way, but now I just have a band saw—a very small band saw—and I just use a quarter-inch plate, mainly for cutting out. And then I do a lot of handwork, like on the headstock and so on. I do inlay, and I have a very unique look, like on flamenco guitars—you  can tell who made the guitar by the shape of the headstock, right? The same thing is true for the ukulele, and I designed a headstock which is uniquely mine. As I said, I’m very interested in the artistic aspect of making ukuleles, so I like to decorate them so that they have a unique look about them. 

As far as the sound goes, I got most of my information from Paul Arrington, who had been making them for a long time, and he gave me the thickness of the top and the sides and just the basic design of the instrument. 

One thing that I’ve always disliked about ukuleles—the commercial ones—is where the neck intersects [the body]. The head of the ukulele is always flat and
the end is fairly flat. But as a designer, I really like curves, so if you look at my ukuleles, there are no flat lines. I curve the top and I curve the bottom, which does make the neck more difficult to attach and get a perfectly square fit, so that the neck is perfectly in the center of the instrument. But I like the subtle curves.

How do you learn to know what sounds great? Everything is totally subjective, obviously, but there are certain sonic standards, you could say. 

You can see anything you want on YouTube, right? So I’ve watched the makers of guitars, and maybe one ukulele maker, talk about how you tap the top—how you hold it in one place with two fingers, let it hang loosely in your hands, and tap the top to hear the tone.

So then I worked with the thickness of the [surfaces] until I found the thicknesses that I liked the best. And a lot of that depends on the wood that I use. If you can get some very, very fine vertical grain, that often seems to make a nice top. I just cut 1/8-inch pieces of wood and then mill them down to their final thickness. I make the sides out of koa, and I’ll sometimes make the top out of fir [Adirondack spruce]. But usually, for the sake of aesthetics, I use all “ukulele wood.” I can get some really beautiful curly koa here.

About how many do you make a year?

Oh, my gosh, it varies widely, but I would say sometimes I make six in a year, and sometimes I only make three.

Do you have a bunch of back orders sitting on your pile?

I would like to say that I do, but I don’t think I’ve made enough or exposed myself enough to have a lot of orders. Havaiki is the only store that I ever sold a ukulele through. 

I’m not interested in having lots of orders, especially at this stage of my life. I would just be interested in getting orders from somebody who really loves the instrument and appreciates my aesthetic.  

I don’t care about money that much in my life anymore. You know what? I do it for pure love of the instrument and the process of molding it in my hands; doing it.

Braverman can be reached via email at tomasbraverman@yahoo.com.