my greek bouzouki

 back in november i wrote that my next major project was to rebuild my greek bouzouki.

 i have finally completed it after a little over four months of intermittent work.

 i got this bouzouki back in 1998 for $25 at an antique shop in red wing while in luthier school there. the soundboard was cracked and warped badly and patched sloppily with paint stir-sticks. i replaced the soundboard with this western red cedar top and inlayed the black applique that was glued on originally.

i hadn't played it seriously until about two years ago when i quit the bass and switched to hurdy gurdy and bouzouki in the Knotwells. the tuners were crap and needed replacing, but i didn't like having a slotted peghead and i never liked the neck which was maple with a black lacquer finish. 

the cedar top was also warping around the soundhole. it was time for another overhaul. a new mahogany neck for the new tuners and a new spruce top.

besides all that, i wasn't satisfied with the overall look. traditional greek bouzoukis are typically very lavish. mine wasn't up to my own standards of craftsmanship.

the soundboard is 3 piece sitka spruce made from one half of a bookmatched pair.

the two outer pieces are from the cut away upper portion. 

the other half of the bookmatch got used for a one piece ukulele top.

the pickguard and headstock face are bookmatched walnut burl veneer.

the inside of the bowl is lined with floral wallpaper. i came up with the inlay design and color scheme first, i just happened to have a roll of paper that matched well.

the inlays are made of abalone, pink and gold mother-of-pearl, black pearloid and, green swirl acrylic.

 

 the body binding is green acrylic with walnut and maple veneer on each side. the headstock and the original wenge fingerboard  have maple and walnut binding.

 there are 275 individual pieces of inlay including the big green side dots and the abalone inlays on the bridge.

 

the bridge is also wenge. the nut and saddle are bone. the neck is a nice curly grained mahogany.

since i was going to finish it just in time for my 42nd birthday (which is today) as a present to myself i decided to stamp the head with:

THE ULTIMATE ANSWER TO LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING!

 the bowl back, the fingerboard and the tailpiece are the only original parts.

 i believe the bowl is made from olive wood with maple or similar light wood spacers between the staves.

on alot of the fancier greek bouzoukis the large overlapping tail strip and the top staves it joins to are also inlayed. i've considered doing this in the future if only to cover the staple marks left from the construction.

the staples actually bent the wood grain and the marks are basically a part of the grain figure. impossible to sand out because they go all the way through.

as of now there is no pickup of any kind. i had planned on putting an undersaddle pickup in the bridge but i couldn't bring myself to drill into this top. eventually i will install something internal.

the build 

it started with wanting new tuners, which led to a new neck, which led to a new top, which led to inlays everywhere. 

i began building the new pieces before dismantling the bouzouki so i wouldn't be without it as long. first came the neck. a shmancy new truss rod gets installed, the headstock gets shaped, faced, and drilled out.

 the top gets joined, and planed down to thickness. then the walnut veneer gets inlayed. the top has about a 15 foot radius arch. the bracing had to be glued before the inlays went in to avoid splitting or cracking them from bending the wood into its arch.

 all the different pieces of inlay get cut to rough shape with a jewelers saw then smoothed out with files. here i have an abrasive strip used by dentists to file fillings between teeth. its about as thick as a sheet of paper, i use it to file out the sharp inside point.

each piece has to be fit with its neighbors. you can see pencil marks on the flower petals to keep my angle from rotating as i fit them.

i sand all the pieces down to a final thickness with this sanding board. there is tape layered around the edge to the height i want. the inlays are taped face down on a piece of plexi, then run over the sanding board until no more sands off.

all the inlay pieces get positioned and tacked down with a drop white glue. 

then i cut around the outline with a scalpel blade.

then i pop the inlays off the top and rout out with a dremel. all the corners and smaller places where the dremel couldn't reach get chiseled out with this little flat chisel, small round chisels and more scalpels.

the inlays get glued in with epoxy dyed to match the walnut. after the epoxy cures it gets scraped down and the whole area gets sanded flush.

by this point i had already built my back-up bouzouki and had started with the disassembly of this one. i used heat lamps to soften the glue. i peeled off the fingerboard, then the top, then i heated the neck mortice.

the bowl was lined with blue construction paper which i scraped out and replaced with floral print wallpaper. the original tail block was completely off center and poorly fit. i replaced it with a maple block.

the outside of the bowlback had a thick lacquer finish which i scraped off. there were also(in addition to the staple marks) deep scratches left by a disc sander in the construction, i sanded those all out.

here the top is getting glued on with binding tape. the body is sitting in a foam cradle i made to keep it from rolling around. next a binding ledge is cut around the edge and the binding gets glued in the same way.

the fingerboard gets inlayed the same way as the top. here all the scalpel outline cuts are filled in with chalk to see better while routing. two of the original dot inlays breach the new outline. those spots get patched with wenge before the inlays go in.

now the neck gets fit to the dovetail mortice and glued in. through the soundhole you can see a wedge, it's pushing the neck tenon up at the end as the ratchet strap pulls the neck and body together. the side dots are also being glued in now.

the headstock binding goes in just before the fingerboard glues on to insure the edges where they meet at the nut line up and aren't too wide or narrow.

 after that the fingerboard is glued in place and the back of the neck is shaped flush to it. then a final fret level and final sanding. i did three light coats of shellac and called it good. i'm really into the open grain look.

 for anyone keeping track, this instrument takes care of  sectionB #8: custom inlay or rosette work on my fender gold level certification, bringing me down to five jobs left to complete.