Zouk in progress part 3

As promised earlier in the week, here is part 3 of Adrian’s Irish Bouzouki build.

All work and no play......

This week has seen the neck of Adrian’s zouk carved: oh my, it’s long!

I have seven different spokeshaves and for some bizarre reason, when I’m shaping a neck, one of them always seems to work better than the others on that particular neck. This is the one I used on the zouk, you can see that it had worn so much that I added a rosewood insert!

I wear a leather apron when I shape a neck; not essential luthier kit, but I find that if I don’t,  because I use myself as a clamp, I end up with a bruised belly!

We’ll be making "Zouk the Movie part 3" tomorrow so more soon…..

On a very different note we had a great day out at the Parson Drove Custom Car and Bike Show. We had been meaning to go for the last few years but as Jacob and Luke were up here with us it was the perfect excuse! Here are a few select photos…..

When you look at these machines, the care, love, passion and attention to detail is incredible and although my medium is wood and theirs is metal you can’t help feeling that you are amongst kindred spirits.

 In spite of trying to introduce Jacob to American muscle cars, it’s clear that he prefers a British classic.

Whilst there I splashed out and bought myself this……

Can you guess where I’m going with it?

Zouk in progress: Part 2

Here’s the next instalment of Adrian’s 'zouk build. We’ve just bought ourselves a new video camera and we’re really pleased with the results!

Bending

Had a good session of bending yesterday. The first thing that I did was to give the bending iron a thorough clean; I needed to bend the maple bindings for Adrian’s zouk and any old build-up of burnt-on resin could stain the maple.

After bending the maple bindings I did two sets of rosewood; one for Phil’s twin-point and the other for Ewart’s Standard Plus. If you look at the bending iron now, you can see the rosewood resin building up again!

 After the sides have dried out the various blocks, that hold the sides together, have to be shaped and glued. Here’s the tail- block on Ewart’s…………

..........and the points on Phil’s

 In this situation heavy duty rubber bands make excellent clamps.
And of the maple bindings are going on to the ‘zouk in the time honoured fashion.