Navazouki Part 4 and more!

With all the woodwork done and having set-up Adrian’s Bouzouki, I’m now ready to apply the finish and that’s what the next video is all about.

In between coats of shellac, I’ve been working on Phil’s twin-point mandolin. I’m making him a dot and diamond rosette. One of the trickiest parts is cutting the diamond shapes; I had a day cutting various inlays a couple of weeks ago, so it was nice just get the diamonds off the shelf and get on with the rosette.

Below you can see the dots and diamonds carefully placed waiting to be filled  with “mastic.”

Of course, back in the day, natural resins, hide glue etc. would have been used, these eventually shrink and the inlays fall out. My “mastic” recipe is epoxy resin with a mixture of ebony dust, earth pigment and a touch of black ink.

We now go through the ugly duckling stage……………

I like to end the blog with a cliff-hanger!