# Instruments and Equipment > Videos, Pictures & Sound Files >  Bouzoukis in Progress

## Tom Haywood

I thought the bouzoukis are sufficiently different from mandolins to justify a separate thread, and that it might be helpful as some of us try to figure out how to build these things.

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## Tom Haywood

The Haywood Irish Bouzouki #1 under construction.

I wanted to try the Spanish style neck joint. We'll see if it will be strong enough. The top is made from a Honduran mahogany top set from LMI. Notice the body size in relation to a dreadnaught. The back and sides are made from a solid cherry guitar set from LMI. Bracing is Sitka spruce shaped to induce an arc of 14' radius on the back. The neck and tail block are cherry. The head plate is a piece of cherry scrap from the back.

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GKWilson

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## Marty Jacobson

Good idea for the thread, Tom. Nice work on the 'zook... looking forward to seeing it. 

I've been thinking about some finishing options you might like, too. I think you should try a Shellac - Oil Varnish - French Polish finish. First a light cut of shellac goes on with a brush. Let that cure out for a day or two, then knock it back to the wood and apply one more coat, let it dry, and level sand. Then several super thin coats of Tru-Oil or Waterlox. I prefer Waterlox, but they're similar products. Then you can buff it out and call it done. At that point it will have a decent sheen, but the texture of the wood will still be slightly visible. The cool thing is that if you get a ding or dent, you can always rub more Waterlox or Tru-Oil over the damaged spot, just like you wood with a gun stock or hardwood floor. Or if you want a mirror gloss, you can French polish over it.

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Tom Haywood

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## Tom Haywood

Marty, I sent you a pm.

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## Charles E.

Tom, that looks interesting. How are you getting the neck angle required with that system?

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## Tom Haywood

Honestly. I'm not sure yet. I took it on faith that the printed plan I started from, which is a flat top with arched back and this neck joint, would result in a decent neck angle, so I didn't think about it much until starting to brace the top and realizing the plan is for a floating bridge. Doesn't look like a real good angle at this point. Also, I've added to the problem by inducing a 30 foot radius arc into the belly of the top. I've mainly been trying to figure how to really stabilize the neck at whatever angle it is. Figuring out this system as I go. Any ideas are greatly appreciated. Maybe a ramp under the fret board. Maybe take it apart and do a neck block. What do you think?

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## Tom Haywood

In this design, the neck angle is set by the side slots in the heel section of the neck. The bridge is a single piece floating bridge that can be cut down to a good height to set the action, but there is not much break over after the bridge. This is all backwards to the way I usually set a neck angle. On this one, the angle actually is not bad, so looks like it will work out OK.

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Charles E.

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## Charles E.

Tom, from what little I have read on the Spanish Heel method, I think the instrument is built on a Solara (sp?) and the top is glued on first. The board dictates the neck angle and the arch of the top. 
I am glad to hear it will work out, keep us posted of the build.

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## sebastiaan56

My current project. 565mm string length, bent top. Tasmanian myrtle back and sides, bear claw spruce top, ebony fingerboard, nut and bridge. Tru Oil finish. Needs rubbing out, cleaning up and set up.

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Marty Jacobson, 

Tom Haywood

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## Eddie Sheehy

I don't know if you're aware of Graham McDonald's site - Mcdonaldstrings.com?   Graham is  a member here and he has written a book on Irish Bouzoukis: The Bouzouki Book is a comprehensive workshop manual on building Irish bouzoukis and citterns, it leads the builder step by step through the procedures amd techniques involved in a building these instruments.  I believe he has it available as an E-PUB... nfi on my part.

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Charles E.

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## Tom Haywood

Graham's information and ideas are excellent. When I was researching this project, it became clear that there are no standards like there are with different styles of guitars and mandolins. Scale lengths, body shapes, body depths, bridges, where the neck joins the body, etc. - everybody's doing something different. They seem to fall mostly into two camps - octave mandolin techniques and guitar techniques, with resulting sounds similar to those (at least to my ear). Once I formed an idea of what this instrument is and how it fits in with other instruments, certain ideas made sense and others didn't. What I am building now is in some ways different from everything else I've studied. The most informative thing has been two Greek bouzoukis that I have, but of course this is somewhat different from those.

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## Tom Haywood

Some sanding to do, some stain and a seal coat, then probably string it up since the humidity around here is much too high to put on the varnish or lacquer.

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## Jake Wildwood

Lookin' good!

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## Tom Haywood

Here's an update. Stain and base coats are on. Waiting to varnish.

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GKWilson, 

Marty Jacobson, 

Pete Jenner

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## Michael Bridges

Tom, that's really looking nice! I'd love to hear how she sounds when all is done.

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## Tom Haywood

Sneak preview. I need to finish setting it up, find a better pick, and learn to play it. This is the first recording - just doodling. Using Audacity on a Mac, sitting about 3 feet from a Samson USB condense mic, no effects.
Haywood Bouzouki #1 A.mp3

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## Tom Haywood

The mp3 attachment isn't playing on my computer. Let me know if I need to upload it again.

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## billhay4

Works on mine, Tom. Sounds good.
Bill

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## Marty Jacobson

Sounds so good, it makes my fingers hurt. :-) There's no way to get that depth of tone without the long scale.

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## OldSausage

Wow, Tom, that has some bass.

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## Tom Haywood

That's tuned to GDAE. It gets deeper when tuned to GDAD, and even deeper when tuned like a Greek bouzouki. The scale is 25.375.

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## Tom Haywood

Here's a video preview.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLO3v...ature=youtu.be

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## Tom Haywood

Here it is tuned to AEAE. There seems to be some audio loss with the upload to YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NY3XFZlUbE

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## Marty Jacobson

Sounds great... the modal tuning gives it a very cool vibe.

What's the nut width you used? I noticed you kept the spacing pretty consistent between the bridge and the nut. Looks like it would be easy to play set up that way. I look forward to getting to play it sometime soon.

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## Michael Bridges

Love it, Tom! Very nice work. I really like the open-tuning modal sound with the AEAE. You gotta bring that to the next get-together.

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## Tom Haywood

The modal tuning is what it was designed for, so I'm glad it's got some mojo. Marty, I think the camera angle makes the nut look wider.  The nut is 1 and 7/16", actually 36mm, with a string spread of 30 mm. This measurement was taken from a couple of Greek bouzoukis, and the idea was to spread the strings so that you can use either one or two fingers on I,V double stops. The saddle string spread is 44 mm which is 7 mm wider than the Greek bouzoukis. For the saddle spacing between strings, I modified measurements posted on the forum by Graham McDonald a while back and went slightly wider. It is very comfortable to strum and pick.

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## Tom Haywood

Learning to embed youtube. A modal tuning.

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## OldSausage

Sounds great, Tom, I especially enjoyed the Cherokee Shuffle at the end there.

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## Tom Haywood

Haywood Bouzouki #1 Specs

Scale length: 25.25”  (641 mm)
Strings:  8
Shape: Teardrop
Overall Length:  38.75 “  (984.25 mm)
Body Length: 17.5 “  (444.5 mm)
Body Width:  13 & 15/16”  (354 mm)
Body Depth at Neck Block:  2 & 15/16” (74.6 mm)
Body Depth at Tail Block:  3 & 15/16”  (100 mm)
Neck/Body Joint: 14th fret

Top:  Solid Honduran Mahogany – two piece 30 ft. arch flat top
Back: Solid American Cherry – two piece 14 ft. arch flat back
Sides: Solid American Cherry
Neck: Constructed solid American Cherry
Headstock Overlay: Solid American Cherry
Top Binding: Bloodwood
Back Binding:  None
Headstock Binding: None
Back Strip:  Bloodwood
Fretboard: Rosewood, unbound
Top Braces: Sitka spruce, scalloped, forward shifted
Back Braces: Sitka spruce
Nut:  Bone
Bridge:  Ebony
Saddle:  Bone
Frets:  20,  guitar frets 
Tuners:  Grover 102, black
Finish Back, Sides, Headstock:  Spray lacquer
Finish Top:  Rubbed Spirit Varnish
Finish Neck:  Rubbed Tung Oil
Fret position marker dots
Side position marker dots
Tail piece:  Stamped nickel plated  
Strings:  D’Addario J81   Irish Bouzouki – Unison courses

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## Tom Haywood

> Tom, from what little I have read on the Spanish Heel method, I think the instrument is built on a Solara (sp?) and the top is glued on first. The board dictates the neck angle and the arch of the top. 
> I am glad to hear it will work out, keep us posted of the build.


Charlie, I'm still not sure how to answer about the neck angle, except to say that it worked out very well. It was supposed to be a "flat" angle dictated, as you said, by the top. What I aimed for with the modifications was to get a bridge/saddle height that would give a good low action and a breakover angle slightly more than the Greek bouzoukis I used for guidance. Those have a pretty high action and a breakover angle of about 3 degrees as best I can measure it. I aimed for 4 degrees and calculated the top support requirement for that, but did the math for as low as 2 degrees and as high as 16 degrees. I wound up with about 2 degrees with an initial 12th fret string height of 2.5/32nds before any adjustments. Looking down the neck, the line hits the bridge at what I would consider a near perfect height on a guitar or mandolin. With the scalloped, forward shifted bracing I did it is still a very loud instrument even though its got only about 5.5 pounds of down force on the top. It held it's own on stage playing with an upright bass, a dobro, a good bluegrass guitar, a good banjo and a loud audience. It is not a banjo killer, but that's mostly because it sounds in the same range and isn't brassy.

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## Tom Haywood

Re-posting this preview so it is embedded here.

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## Tom Haywood

Still in progress, so here's a little more sound.

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## OldSausage

Wow, that shook some things off my desk just playing the video! Sounds great.

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## dusty miller

I 2nd that, sounds great Tom

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## Michael Bridges

BIG sound! I like it, Tom. Looks great, and sounds wonderful. Nice job.

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## OldSausage

I got to try this one out the other night, it sounds just wonderful, and even better than the videos. I never knew I wanted a bouzouki so much until I played this. Thanks for letting me try it, Tom!

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## Tom Haywood

Another tune.

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## rusty999

> I thought the bouzoukis are sufficiently different from mandolins to justify a separate thread, and that it might be helpful as some of us try to figure out how to build these things.


Hi Guys and great to find a bouzouki thread here. Just wondering does anyone have a plan of an Irish Zouk that I could download or study? I did purchase Graham Mcdonalds book but the plans are not to scale and I cant seem to find a link on his site to download the full size drawings. Are there other similar plans out there ? I just need to get my head around the process and might give it a go with some nice wood I got some years ago but never used.
Any help appreciated
Thanks 
Rusty

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## Graham McDonald

Here's the link

http://www.mcdonaldstrings.com/Zoukbook/plans.pdf

There is a link on the page about the book

cheers

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## rusty999

> Here's the link
> 
> http://www.mcdonaldstrings.com/Zoukbook/plans.pdf
> 
> There is a link on the page about the book
> 
> cheers


Many Thanks Graham, didnt realise you were on here--great book on building the bouzouki by the way !!
Thanks 
Rusty

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## Tom Haywood

Rusty, I gathered information from all over the place, including some things Graham has posted in different places, which was all very helpful. I bought a couple of Greek bouzoukis to study and sort of get back to the original source. In the end it was clear that everyone is taking very different approaches. I bought a full scale plan from Music Makers for their Irish bouzouki flat top kit, because that was the only one with the scale length I wanted. I completely changed everything in that plan except the dimensions of the top and back plates, and those I arched like a guitar, but it was helpful to have those full size drawings.

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## Graham McDonald

Rusty, as Tom says, the thing with bouzoukis and octave mandolins is that there are few, if any, hard and fast rules about them. The idea behind the book was to present a couple of different ways of approaching the construction that allowed a 'mix and match' approach if that if what the builder wanted to do rather than follow the prescribed instructions for building one or the other styles.

Feel free to send a PM or an email if you need clarifications.

cheers

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## rusty999

Thanks to Tom and Graham for the advise. We live so far apart and yet its so encouraging for me to be able to chat to people like yourselves. Here in Ireland I find one of the hardest parts of building a musical instrument is trying to source wood that is good enough and dry enough and its much the same with tools for luthier work--you guys are so lucky when it comes to choice in the USA. I have built a couple of acoustic guitars and an electric as well but my heart is pulling me towards the bouzouki and mandolin, especially after playing a Phil Crump and also a Joe Foley bouzouki. In my younger days I did own a Greek bouzouki back in the day when Planxty and Andy Irvine made it so popular here in Ireland , Myself and the zouk parted company after a friend sat on the neck and broke it but thats another story !! Thanks again guys .   Rusty

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## GarY Nava

One thing that I’ve noticed on zouks with floating bridges, is that the bridge seems to lower compared to OMs etc. This means that there will be less force exerted on the soundboard. I was wondering if this contributed to the sound/feel that zouk players want? Any comments?
Cheers Gary

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## Tom Haywood

French polish finish starting to cure.

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## Tom Haywood

> One thing that I’ve noticed on zouks with floating bridges, is that the bridge seems to lower compared to OMs etc. This means that there will be less force exerted on the soundboard. I was wondering if this contributed to the sound/feel that zouk players want? Any comments?
> Cheers Gary


The lower down force does seem to contribute substantially to the looser, more jangly sound and feel, along with the longer scale length of around 25". To my ear, the floating bridge definitely adds to it. The fixed bridges create a tighter, more guitar-like sound, probably due to the higher force caused by a greater break-over angle behind the saddle. My limited research indicated that the jangly sound and feel are desirable among players who like the longer scale length. It also indicated, however, that the vast majority of players prefer a shorter scale length of around 23" or less. Everything I've listened to in the shorter scale lengths has a much tighter sound, regardless of the bridge type.

I'm debating whether to put a fixed bridge on the next full-length flat top I build.

Would like to hear comments from players.

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GarY Nava

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## Pete Jenner

I'm not a good player Tom so I can't help with your question but that machine is looking sexy.

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## GarY Nava

Well into the construction of my zouk- put together a little video of the first few stages.
Cheers Gary

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Jan Viljoen, 

Pete Jenner, 

Tom Haywood

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## billhay4

Very nice, precise work, Gary. Your usual high quality. Look forward to seeing and hearing the completed instrument.
Bill

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GarY Nava

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## GarY Nava

Hi Guys,
Well here's the next video of my 'zouk build. Must admit that I'm getting quite excited about completing and hearing it.
Cheers Gary

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Jan Viljoen, 

Marty Jacobson, 

Pete Jenner

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## Pete Jenner

Love the out takes Gary.

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## Tom Haywood

Finally finished the french polish and am calling this one done. Wish I knew how to take better photos. I did not fill the grain on the mahogany top.

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GarY Nava, 

Pete Jenner, 

sgrexa

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## Pete Jenner

It looks great. Well done again Tom.

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## Tom Haywood

Here are the photos for the entire build of this flat top bouzouki. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...2561233&type=3

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GarY Nava

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## GarY Nava

Hi Guys,
Here's part 3 of my zouk build videos.
Cheers Gary

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GKWilson, 

Pete Jenner, 

Tom Haywood

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## John Kelly

Two fine-looking instruments there, Gary and Tom.  I have only tried one bouzouki so far as I was asked if I'd ever built one!  Here is a link to my Picasa pix of the instrument, which I enjoy playing and which a fellow bandmate plays even more!

https://plus.google.com/photos/10296...99189942494657

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GKWilson, 

Tom Haywood

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## Tom Haywood

Beautiful instruments, Gary and John, and great presentations of your work. I love the mandolins and am intrigued with the other CBOMs, but there is something unusually beautiful about a full length Irish bouzouki.

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## GarY Nava

Seems us bouzouki builders are an elite few! :Wink: 
Anyway guys, here is the next video for your viewing pleasure.
Cheers Gary

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GKWilson, 

Jan Viljoen, 

John Kelly, 

Pete Jenner, 

Tom Haywood

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## John Kelly

Great-looking instrument there, Gary, and I completely agree with your thoughts on finishing an instrument.  Thanks for posting the video clip and I look forward to the next instalment.

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GarY Nava

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