Official Luthiers Forum!

Anyone?

Goodin, Gil Draper builds really nice one's

Fred Tellier and Ron Belanger.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

I build octave mandolins and citterns (5 course). They are essentially short scale bouzoukis.

I'm looking for decent plans for an IB...

The Plans in Graham McDonald's book are a good starting point. I build mine a bit differently, but his book has fairly standard (and so not so standard) designs.
I like to use "cylindrical" arching and a body that is narrower at the tail than the head to give a more percussive and "tighter" sound than is typical for a guitar.

I have Graham McDonald's book and it is a useful tool, I got to play the guitar bouzouki PRS made for Tony McManus and liked the sound but wanted a more traditional shape so I built one with an outline very similar the McDonald but a bit larger and deeper to get more of the guitar Zouk sound I liked. I have built 2 with a 24.9" scale as I wanted the guitar feel when playing and also a short scale Octave Mandolin based on the same body.
There are some photos here http://s190.photobucket.com/user/fetellier/library/Irish%20Bouzouki?sort=2&page=1and here http://s190.photobucket.com/user/fetellier/library/Octave%20Mandolin%20and%20Irish%20Bouzouki?sort=2&page=1

A video of Al Petteway demo of my Bubinga/bearclaw Sitka Zouk at the Memphis guitar show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1nlayyNcok

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866