The Gouzouki Project - Strip Down and Preparation

This is a much more complex project than anything I've tried so far, but I have a high expectation for it. The aim is to not spend too much on materials for the conversion but end up with an instrument to be proud of.

I wouldn't even be considering this project if it wasn't for the fact that Faith guitars use a bolt-on neck so, in theory, it should be relatively easy to remove it and use as a pattern for the replacement bouzouki style neck.

First step is to remove the strings and pegs and everything from the neck area: machine heads, nut, truss rod cover & strap button. This picture shows that the back of the head has actually been battered around a fair bit and also shows up how rough my original repair was. It just instictively feels so weak.

Then back into familiar territory by now, getting the steam iron out to steam the fingerboard off. People at work are starting to wonder why I have mahogany coloured stripes down my shirts......

It actually put up quite a fight compared to last time, so I can take comfort that my gluing was strong 😀

This inside shot shows the 2 bolts that hold the neck on. They are hidden behind a sticker that Faith put on in the factory.

With the fingerboard off, and the bolts removed, the neck could move a little but wasn't breaking free.  It looked like there was maybe a bit of glue from the fingerboard holding this extension piece in place. I scored through it carefully with a Stanley knife.

"𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 I want to break free ee... 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 "   Gently does it....

Once apart, you can see the mortice and tenon joint and also the two inserts in the neck which the bolts screw into.

A small piece of the soundboard broke away with the fingerboard (another lesson learned there). It glued back in OK though.

The neck joint is relatively simple, although not as perpendicular as it all looks on the face of it.

The inserts unscrewed easily from the neck using a hex key, so I can reuse these on the new neck.

This photo doesn't really show what a poor state the fingerboard is in. It should be nice and straight but is anything but that. I've decided the only way to really solve this is to install a new fingerboard as well. That will add a bit of cost but will also give me the opportunity to take the fingerboard down until it's flush with the soundhole and that will hide the broken piece that I had to glue back in. I'll have a think about that one.

So now onto making the new neck next. I have several sources showing me the theory of what I need to do and it all looks relatively achievable. We shall see.

The Gouzouki Project - Introduction

This Faith has been great value so far to get me used to the anatomy of the guitar and some of the repair techniques, but at the end of the last project, I mentioned that the neck still wasn't 100% and I had concerns about the strength of the repair. I was leaning toward making a new neck as a practice for starting to build a guitar from scratch. 

As an aside, I've started teaching myself to play the irish bouzouki to give a bit of variety to the rhythm section of our "band" (I use the term very loosely!) and bought myself an entry level Hora (Romanion) bouzouki last year, something like this one:

It's OK, but not the most refined sound in the world.  So I started thinking that I might like to get a better bouzouki and maybe that would be a good first build project? After a bit of research, I ordered the "bible" for building bouzoukis by Australian luthier Graham McDonald, and this includes plans for a scratch built one.

Reading through the book, it mentioned various different designs, including a "guitar-bodied" bouzouki, which have the advantage of being an easier shape to play sitting down and also having a bigger body so gives a better sound projection. Essentially, this is a guitar body with a bouzouki neck, which is about 10mm narrower and has 4 pairs of strings instead of 6 single strings. Something like this:

Doesn't look too dissimilar to my Faith with the broken neck, does it? (Can you see where this is heading?):

In a blinding flash of inspiration I decided that I could use the great all solid wood Faith body and build a new neck to suit a bouzouki instead of a guitar and bingo! I'll have my very own  guitar bodied bouzouki! Once I started googling this, I found out that it's a fairly well trodden path, but normally done by modifying the existing guitar neck, rather than building a completely new one. These are commonly known as "gouzoukis".

So the plan is:

1) strip guitar and remove fingerboard

2) remove the neck and use this as a pattern to build a new neck, but to a narrower design

3) modify the existing fingerboard to reduce the width

4) build the head plate shape to suit 8 machine heads in 4 pairs

5) include a new head veneer with a custom inlaid logo?

6) install neck and fingerboard

7) fill in the existing holes in the saddle for the 6 pegs and drill out for 8 pegs in new layout

8) make new nut and saddle from blanks to suit the new string layout

9) refinish saddle and new neck

10) answer lots of questions from people saying "what exactly IS that?"