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Post by lars on Jun 5, 2018 20:04:51 GMT
In april I started what was planned to be a twin build, making an Irish Bouzouki and a Mandolin. After planing tops, back and sides and bending the sides, I decided to put the mandolin on hiatus and concentrate on the bouzouki. I have very little time to spend on instrument building right now, so the build has been - and will continue to be - very slow, but I've had some progress that I'd like to share.
Here are the plans for the zook:
If you have seen any of my previous build threads, you will recognise the design. But I've actually redrawn the shape and built new moulds for both bouzouki/octave mandola and mandolin bodies. Very small and subtle changes, but I think they will have impact.
Here are some shots from the process so far:
It all started by hand planing tops and backs...
And then glue backs and sides...
And continue to plane until final thickness (that is 2.3 for tops and 2.5 for backs). I also planed the sides to about 2.0 mm.
And then bend the sides in my hi-tech machine.
I forgot to take any pictures of making my neck block (but I did make one). Here I've glued the sides to the neck block:
Inserting the carbon fibre tubes and glue it all together with the tail block:
I also cut the profile for top and back and sanded it roughly in the sanding through (as seen in the image above)
Time for making pieces for the solid linings (which are also bent on the hot pipe):
And it looks like this:
I put on "vertical" braces and drilled, filed and sanded a sound port. The final rim set looks like this:
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Post by ashley on Jun 6, 2018 13:03:12 GMT
I like the high tech side bending machine, I use a similarly high tech one for bending purfling etc for the rosette  Looks great so far 👍 |
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Post by lars on Jun 6, 2018 17:33:21 GMT
I like the high tech side bending machine, I use a similarly high tech one for bending purfling etc for the rosette Looks great so far 👍 You wouldn't believe if I say that is actually more hi-tech than I'm used to. You can see that the wooden frame is all burnt black - I used to just clamp the pipe on it and hope it wouldn't turn on fire! So the threaded steel rods is a real improvement :-) |
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Post by lars on Jun 6, 2018 17:43:30 GMT
The sound hole and "rosette"
Here are some of the steps in making the sound hole and rosette. For the first time I've used the laminate trimmer with the newly built circle cutter jig, but I used it in conjunction with my hand held circle cutter.
First step was cutting and routing the channel in the souncboard.
Then I routed the rosette in a leftover piece from the sapele back and glued the rosette in the slot and trimmed down flush to the soundboard with planer and scraper (but didn't take any pictures). And then I glued a spruce veneer on the back side.
Next step was to route the sound hole itself. As you can see is the wood grain in the rosette perpendicular to the soundboard and so is the back strip, so it's essentially a 3-ply around the hole.
Lastly I bent a binding strip of maple on the hot pipe and glued it in the sound hole:
And after some trimming:
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Post by lars on Jun 6, 2018 17:55:06 GMT
Bracing the top
The top is profiled to a 3 m (10 ft) radius, but only perpendicular to the strings. In the string direction it's flat, so it's basically a "barrel vault". I think of it as a cylinder top, but that term is mostly used for the Howe-Orme kind of profiling (which I think of as a "double-S"-profile). The bracing itself is a hybrid ladder-H-bracing. The middle brace is positioned under the bridge and reinforced with 0.8 mm carbon fibre.
The "voiced" top:
And notches are cut in the rim:
Almost ready to be glued:
And...
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leoroberts
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My main instrument is: probably needing new strings
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Post by leoroberts on Jun 7, 2018 22:34:23 GMT
I do love a good build thread |
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francis
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Post by francis on Jun 14, 2018 18:34:03 GMT
And this is a GOOD build thread  |
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Post by lars on Jun 15, 2018 20:33:46 GMT
And this is a GOOD build thread Thank you, Francis! I hope this will be a good enough build thread. But nothing compared to your's, I'm afraid. And it will take some time until I can update it. I've been extremely busy lately and will be busy for a while yet. But someday... |
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Post by lars on Aug 4, 2018 19:40:57 GMT
Bracing the back and closing the box
It's been a long time since I updated, but I've been working in a slow tempo all summer. So now I'll update the thread in a few posts to catch up.
After gluing the top it was time to brace the back plate. The back is radiused just like the top; that is a 3 m radius, but only perpendicular to the strings and flat in the string direction. Here I used plain ladder braces made of spruce:
And after some more shaving and a reinforcement strip in the middle it looked like this:
And I could finally close the box:
And after trimming the edges it looked like this:
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Post by lars on Aug 4, 2018 19:58:33 GMT
Adding bindings
This was the first time I could try my new binding jig. And it really turned out well!
And I almost forgot to cut a channel for the tail strip. This was cut by hand.
The bindings were made from American Maple. I've been keeping a plank for years, intending to use it for necks. But I realised that the wood was to dense and heavy, at least for a bouzouki neck, so with some help from my band saw and planer I ended up with thin slices of maple that were bent on the hot pipe.
To add some contrast between the light coloured maple and equally light coloured spruce top, I included a 0.5 mm black veneer as "purfling" to the top:
After that I took a break for some vacation i Greece, and after coming home I could complete the bindings. Here are some images of the result:
(yes, there are some tear outs, that I must deal with later)
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Post by lars on Aug 4, 2018 20:31:06 GMT
Making the neck, part I
The first steps were taken a long time ago, when I cut the neck blank in an angle of 15 degrees, and glued a scarf joint for the head:
And cleaned it up with hand plane:
I routed the channel for the truss rod:
And later I routed channels for carbon fibre rods on each side. Here I had to use my Dremel, as I don't have a 4 mm bit for my real router. It was the first time I used the Dremel and I under-estimaded it's "woblyness" and over-estimated it's power. It was pure luck that I made it, and I won't bother you with the mistakes. So let's just look at the result, with wooden caps over both truss rod and CF-rods.
(i actually had to break up the truss rod, route it 2 mm deeper and add a new cap, as the nut for the truss rod wasn't deep enough to get under the top plate. This is the first time that I'll adjust the truss rod from the sound hole)
I made a late decision to saw the neck blank to almost finished width (compared to the width at the body joint). So I put it in the band saw and hand planed it afterwards. Then I added the stacked heel:
Here I calculated the neck angle and started to chisel and file the heel and neck extension
I drilled holes for the barrel nuts and threaded rods, that will fasten the neck through the neck block:
And lastly, I added wings to the head:
That's it for now!
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Aug 4, 2018 23:08:38 GMT
Good to see these updates lars - looking mighty fine! Keith |
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francis
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Post by francis on Aug 5, 2018 6:11:15 GMT
As I said before a great build thread Well done lars |
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Post by lars on Aug 5, 2018 9:36:32 GMT
Thank you very much, Keith and Francis!
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garynava
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Post by garynava on Aug 5, 2018 14:38:50 GMT
Hi lars, The body has come out well- the bindings look nice and clean. You’ve beat me on the binding jig- I’ve used mine in a fixed position for my archtop’s binding but haven’t got it to go up and down yet! Keep up the good work, cheers Gary PS Glad to see that you’re doing a spliced head joint. |
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Jo whoever he is.
