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This weekend was productive! I got the back glued on. Next is the top! Enjoy.



Tracy

Thanks Hesh! This is a Koa/Sycamore/Koa back. The top will be Cedar. It will be a 8 string Pin bridge Bouzouki.
Tracy

Tracy

What scale are you going to use?

Josh

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
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House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

very neat sounbox and i love the 3 piece back Tracy, looks very good so far!

Josh,
Going to be using a 25.4" scale tuned to GDAD. I have no idea if it will work since I've never played a bouzouki, but I do want it as a chord instrument and not a melody instrument.

Thanks Serge for the kind comments!

Tracy

Zouks are just too much fun Tracy!
I finished my first one last December & haven't learned a whole bunch of chords yet, but it's a cool instrument for noodling around on at a jam.
I'm contantly amazed at how loud you can play the little guys. Played with a flat pick they can hold their own in a roomfull of guitars.
It's fun to do a counter melody with the fiddle or mandolin player too.
Whenever a guitar player gets ahold of mine, they tune it to DGBE & use it like a double course, four string guitar.
I usually tune to GDAE, but ADAD is easier for a lot of chords with the long scale like yours.
There's a 22" scale one in the shop waiting for a few more coats of lacquer. I'm really looking forward to trying it out once its strung up.
Please let us know how it turns out. Sure looks good so far!
Daniel M38789.7424884259

Looks cool! Are you following Graham Macdonalds' book?
If you use that long scale, it will indeed but a stretch to play melodies, and even some of the chords will be hard. The tuning you mentioned, GDAD, will make you have to work harder to play some things, too.. Tuning GDAE makes it a bit easier- but this is how I learned and so that makes it harder for me to think of other tunings, I guess.
I'm looking forward to seeing it all done!

_________________
Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Tracy

I build my guitar-bouzoukis with a 24.9 and it works well. I'm sure that 25.4 will work fine. I started playing mine with it tuned GDAE but I have found that for the most part I prefer GDAD. It depends on what I am playing. If I am doing melody stuff I find GDAE works really well, but GDAD has some really cool chording possibilities. The long scale takes some getting used to, but don't let that scare you. If you have big hands you should be okay. I found it hard to chord in GDAE but GDAD is very manageable. I have also shown one of mine to a number of professionals and they didn't think that 24.9 was to long. Thy this one at 25.4 and if it doesn't work you can always make another one right?

I have a really good chord sheet for GDAD that I got from Dave here at OLF. If I still have it on the computer I will send it to you. Or maybe he can send it to you. It was very helpful for me when I started playing in GDAD.

Josh

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

Thanks Daniel, I'll keep you all updated as I build.
Mark, I am using Graham's book, but not really. He sent me the bracing this top shape, but he uses a 26" scale. I don't know how anyone can play that. But anyway, I'll give it a try and if I can't play it, I can always make another as a 22" or 24" scale.

Josh, I would love to see the chord sheet if you can find it. I'm planning on buying a DVD on how to play in GDAD. HERE is where I'll get it. Go check out the samples of the DVD. The tunes sound great!
Tracy

Don't forget that if you don't like the long neck, you can always capo up!
Graham shows in his book Octave Mandolins also, and the only real difference between one of those and a bouzouki is the scale length.

_________________
Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

[QUOTE=tl507362]
Mark, I am using Graham's book, but not really. He sent me the bracing this top shape, but he uses a 26" scale. I don't know how anyone can play that[/QUOTE]

Tracy,

My guitar bouzouki has a 25.75" scale length and for me it is a breeze to play both chordal accompaniment and melodies. It's a bit like playing DADGAD on guitar - given the modal nature of the GDAD tuning most chord shapes require only one or two fingers to fret them.

I also make a short scale travel bouzouki that is 23.8" scale length. Very loud and the perfect size for sessions.

You can capo up and a lot of people do that in sessions, using the capo at the 5th fret for tunes in G. The chord shapes in GDAD are so easy to find chords in almost any key that I find it much easier not to use a capo at all.

I'm e-mailing you later today and I'll send the GDAD chord chart with that.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Dave, I've never seen nor a bouzouki. Is it played like a mandolin?

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Tracy,
Did you say you are using a fixed bridge?
What brace patturn are you using for the cedar top?

Wade

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Wade
Nashua, NH
http://www.wadefx.com

Graham McDonald's book has excellent plans in the back. He used an X latice system which produces a really nice sound. Soft & tinkly when played gently & a powerhouse when you want to get more agressive.
I'm going to build one with a standard X pattern & see what the difference is. My zooks are the "onion on a stick" flat tops rather than guitar shaped. I love the look of the traditional shape, but I bet yours will project even better than the traditional version.
One cool thing about the onion shape long scale is, with the body joint at the 17th fret, you can easily capo WAY up the neck.
I haven't tried GDAD yet... That'd make some chords quite a bit easier.
Cheers,   Dan

Daniel, were you or anyone else at the talk Graham gave at the last GAL meeting? I was there, and I got to play all of the instruments he had there, and pick his brain a bit. I bought the book from him right there. I visited quite a bit with him, and even got to do some playing with him, too.
I think that the book is good stuff, but I choose to do some things differently. He isn't a fan of a flat-topped instrument with a floating bridge and says in the book that floating bridges belong on carved-top instruments, and flat-topped ones should use a pin bridge. The thing I don't like about the pin bridge is that it is a lot of pressure on the top, and you need to brace the heck out of the small instrument to make it work.
I differ with him on that point, and I use a floating bridge on my flat topped instruments. I use the traditional shape, "onion" shaped as Daniel calls it. As long as you don't use too much neck angle, you won't get an un-due amount of down-force on the top and I use a regular X-brace layout with no troubles at all. I use ONLY the X-brace, the only other bracing is a spruce bridge patch right under the bridge. I've never had a top fail on me. I like the thought of a lighter-built instrument. Here is a shot of the side view, showing the neck angle.

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Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Hey Mark, can we get a full shot of that? Thanks...

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Believe it or not, I can't seem to find a photo of that one- it has a heart-shaped soundhole. But here is one with a round hole, just like it.
Mark Swanson38790.7127199074

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Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Here's a photo of the one with a heart-shaped hole, before it was finished. It's the only one I have done with this soundhole, and I like it- I should do more this way. It has a feminine look to it! <G>

_________________
Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Ron,

The "Irish" bouzouki is a relatively modern introduction. It was developed in the late 1960's early 1970's when musicians such as Andy Irvine went to Greece and Eastern Europe nad came across the bouzouki type instruments there. These were short scale instruments and they wanted something with a bit more "wellie" for Irish music. So they experimented with longer scale instruments still with the teardrop shape of the instruments they had seen. Most of the Irish players such as Andy Irvine, Donal Lunny, Manus Lunny etc also played mandolin and GDAE was a tuning that became common. They were used for both melody and chordal accompaniment.

The teardrop instruments have a nasal sort of sound and Andy Irvine wanted something with a more mellow sound and went to English luthier Stefan Sobell who made him a guitar shaped bouzouki - guitar shape and scale length with a 16 fret body join for higher fret access. GDAD became a very popular tuning as it had a more modal sound and chordally works better. These instruments cut through in a mix and imho sit a lot better with Irish music than a guitar.

Here's a couple of pics of the one I mde for myself based largely around Stefan's original design. This one is 25.75" scale length and has a 16" lower bout width:

_________________
Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Thanks for all the info Dave, I got the chord chart. Very informative!
Mark, very beautiful Bouzouki's! Hope mine turns out 1/2 as nice as yours.

I'll have a fixed pin bridge and the cedar top will be X braced with a lattice bracing. Graham personally wrote out the bracing pattern for me, and sent me the template for this shape Zouk. I'm working on the rosette right now, and trying to get a spiral rosette to work. I'll have an update on that by the weekend. Thanks for all the great comments, you guys are getting me fired up to hurry finish this so I can play it!
Tracy

Dave, we were posting at the same time! I didn't see your Zouk. Very nice, I bet that one is loud. With a 16" lower bout, that is just like a small jumbo! Great job on that it really looks nice.
Tracy

Then there are the Fylde mandolins...here is a shot of one of my favorite bands, Fairport Convention. These guys are So good...but anyway, the guy on the right is playing a Fylde octave mandolin. I recently met a builder whose name I can't remember (!) who is building Chris a new 5-course (10 string) version right now. Chris is a super nice guy, and I've talked quite a bit with him about his mandolin. He tunes GDAE, and what he has is the shorter scale octave mandolin since he also plays standard mandolin.

_________________
Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Thanks for the info, Dave, and very nice looking instrument.

Ron

_________________
OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Geesh, after watching this thread, i remember that last year, some peddler friend of mine offered to sell me what appears to be a bouzouki! Thought it was a bizarre mandolin that was also in pretty bad shape and he was asking 50 bucks for it but i had already spent too much in the guitar project at the time and kindly refused the offer. i also remember the label inside had russian or slovak readings! i told him to keep it as a decoration, i hope he still got it, could be worth a fortune!