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Better late then never right! I bought this kit from Music Makers late last year and was waiting to completly finish my first build before I start and I'm just about there now.

This kit came with:
Solid cherry spanish style neck
Solid cherry sides
Solid mahognay sound board
Laminate cherry back
Spruce braces
Paduk brigde
Indian rosewood fret board
Black closed gear tuners

Ironically I decided to do my first build from scratch. (I did a gourd mandolin, did it because I've done other gourd instruments) Guess I didn't want to mess up a $400 kit.

Please let me know what you think of the woods. I'll post a pick of the kit ASAP.
Thanks, Will

The wood selection sounds great, Will! I'm really looking forward to seeing how this goes together. Do you have a set of plans that you can show us? Have fun!

Alex

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Yea it is a great wood selection. Here is a link to there site: http://www.harpkit.com/mm5/merchant.mvc ... =bouzoukis you can also look up some free PDF plans from this site too. Got a great set of trekker guitar plans for build #3.

Here is the kit I got from harpkit.com. The request I had was to have them leave the top intact (no sound hole cut) I'll be doing F holes. Also, I went to Stewmac and ordered mahogany reversed kerfing to replace the plywood kerfing they provided. I'll be putting in a transductive pick up in as well. They say it's a 20-30 hour build.

Cool project Will. I will watch with great interest!

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Doug

Don't let fear or common sense stop you from trying to build something

Yesterday when I went to glue the sides to the tail block I discovered that low and behold one side was 1/16" thicker then the other. I got lucky though, my wife reminded me about some popular vaneer I bought 3 years ago. A knife and some more glue and I created a shim for the tail block.

Tonight I'm gluing the sides to the neck and starting to work on the kerfing!

Been debating whether I'm gonna do purfling or not... originally I was not gonna for this build, but everyone has been raising the bar. Hmm, the bridge is padauk and i have some 1/8" padauk laying around. What do ya'll think? I'd have to do it all with hand tools. Should I?

So, gluing the kerfing is going pretty good so far. I discovered when I glued the sides that it cocks the neck to the side a bit. I was impressed though the instructions actually suggest that of this happens to use some small tacks on the overhang of the sound board to help hold the body square while gluing the top. Oh well, looks like I'll be taking a piece of OSB and making a jig to hold the body square. No biggie just some more work.

Been working on the bouzouki today. I'll probably start on the top and back very soon.

So I finished bracing the back and sound board as instructed by the plans. They look pretty good, I'll post a picture tonight.

I now have a bit of a conflict to resolve. Originally I wanted to do F-holes like in a arch-top mandolin. But, I was looking aroung forums and google, and I saw some great rounded triangle shapes where you would see a round sound hole. I know I don't want a round sound hole. Also, I don't really have access to any power tools and if I do a sound hole rather then f-holes I'm not sure how hard it is to do binding by hand.

Does anyone have experince with binding using chisels only? Should I just do f-holes? I really like the triangle sound holes... would it look wierd if I didn't do binding?

If your gonna Bind the sound hole , you just Bind the edge that is exposed , Or are you Talking about applying a rosette?

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Guess I ment a rosette. But, now that you mention it maybe I should bing the edge since I don't have a router. Hmm... paduak sound hole binding w/ paduak soundboard binding may just hit the spot! Thanks for the clarification.

I don't have a router either and I did both my rosettes by hand. In fact, it probably wouldn't apply to your build, but I think hand cutting makes it easier to do more interesting style rosettes. With a router it's so easy just to do a circle people tend not to do anything else, but by hand it's the same difficulty whether doing a circle or an odd shape.

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You make a good point Peter. It does give quite a bit of freedom doing a rosette or inlay by hand.

I decided that instead of doing a rosette for this build I would do binding instead. I was on www.liutaiomottola.com and he gives a really good tutorial on how to do it. Also, I decided to go with an "original" sound hole shape, it is a pentagon with rounded corners. Should be a bit of a challenge to bend the paduak!

Been busy with household things the past week, but I was able to finish reinforcing the sound hole and got a new hand tool for the shop. ...yes I know it looks like an inverted superman symbol, , was pointed out to me afterwards.
Oh well, I like how it looks. Hope to get it bound by the end of the week.