Greek Baglama

[Keith Ambridge]

Hi folks,

I thought I would share with you my pair of Greek Baglamas.

A baglama is a half size bouzouki (around 35cm scale) but it is no toy!

I didn't find much info on here about building stave or bowl backed instruments so I thought my experience may help others.

I made a pair because I thought it wouldn't take much mor effort than making one.

They are twins but not identicle, both bowls (skafos) are mulberry and yew staves with Indian rosewood strips. One has a mulberry neck and the other a yew neck. Both soudboards are the same.

















This is as far as I've got for now, I was hoping that one would be ready as a Christmas gift but alas I ran out of workshop time so I guess it will have to be a birthday preasent!

[Jason Rodgers]

Those are as cute as a bug! Nice, tight stave work. So, that would be a mandolin-size bouzouki, right?

What's up with the tinfoil interior, though?!

[Christ Kacoyannakis]

Really nice work. Are these your first instruments, or first staved instruments? My first instrument was a Greek bouzouki. Did you use anything as support across the staves on the inside of the bowls? In Greek bouzoukis, they usually run a few strips of linen or cotton or now sometimes carbon fiber cloth soaked in glue across the staves. I know it is hard to find the gold foil that they use to line the skafos outside of Greece (I have a stash!) Anyway, you could use regular gold foil paper.

To answer the question, the foil they use is very thin paper covered foil, and it conforms to the inside of the bowl very well. Since the body of these instruments is more of a reflector for the sound, rather than a sympathetic vibrating plate, it is not really a problem to line the bowl. The lining serves two purposes. One is to reinforce the stave glue joints (along with the transverse cloth strips glued in before the paper). The other purpose is to cover the big secret in bouzouki making. You see, the more expensive the bouzouki, the more staves it appears to be made of. In reality, almost all bowls are either 15 or 19 staves. To make bowls with higher numbers of staves, they build a bowl and then cut little lines in each stave (usually not all the way through) and then inlay stripes similar to the ones between the real stave joints. There is a myth that bowls made with more staves are rounder, etc. etc. The bouzouki is not round anyway. It is flatter on the sides and on the back. Plus, there is no way a bowl made with 60 staves is going to sound better - it is all glue and glue joints.

Anyway, didn't mean to divert attention from this great work. Keith, you have done a fantastic job. Love seeing this type of thing.

[Michael Lewis]

What sort of neck joint? I don't see much possibility for strength in such a small contact area, so how is it done? Do these instruments use gut or steel strings?

[Keith Ambridge]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the comments.

Jason, I guess it is a kind of mandolin bouzouki, the scale is about the same but the body is much smaller and it only has 3 courses of strings tuned Dd,aa,dd.
Christ Kakoyannakis answers your foil question, I didn't know the bit about coverin up the cheat with the ammount of staves!

Christ, I have made a few other instruments, steel string, nylon, and a resonator guitar. also a not very good bouzouki and a couple of other baglamas.
I live in Greece so I get alot of inspiration!
There are a couple of glue soaked linen strips under the foil!
By the way, I recognised your name and I really admire your instruments!

Michael, I have used a dowel drilled into the neck and the cone for my neck joint, they do have steel strings but quite low tension.

[Keith Ambridge]

Michael,
you can see the dowel sticks (just) in this photo.

[Keith Ambridge]

Well, this is as far as I've got, I won't be touching them again until after the new year!



I don't know why but all the baglamas and bouzoukis I have come across (that have fingerboard markings) are marked at the 10th rather than the 9th fret. I only discovered this when a Greek friend played my (1st) baglama and he kept getting lost because I had marked 5,7,9,12.
Perhaps Christ Kacoyannakis can shed light on this?



Happy Chrismas everone!

[Steve Senseney]

Nice work!

Can you show more of the rosette?

[Christ Kacoyannakis]

The markings are on the 10th string, because of the tuning. In the original bouzouki (three courses) their were many different tunings. There are many modes in Greek music, and musicians would retune their instruments when they changed modes. Eventually, the settled on a more or less standard DAD tuning. So, the 10th fret would mark CGC. If you did it on the 9th it would be BF#B. When they added a fourth pair of strings, they changed the tuning to one whole step above the top four strings of the guitar DAFC, so the 10th fret marker marks CGEbBb (not as helpful as the three course, but the tradition had already been established, and when they added the fourth pair, a lot of musicians just changed the nuts and saddles on their instruments (a lot of three course instruments were made with mandolin tuners with four on a plate, so the tuning machines were already there)).

As for the neck joint, normally they use a tapered dovetail (parallel with the neck). Some, myself included, use a larger mortise and tenon with some dowels to lock it in place.

[Keith Ambridge]

Steve, This is about as good as I can get for the rosette,
I have to admit that my brother made the soundboards for these two as he loves making rosettes and one of the instruments is for him anyway!



Christ, Thanks for the info on the fingerboard markings, I knew someone would explain it someday!

I did know about the dovetail joint, but to be honest I think my dowel will take alot of beating!
I got the idea from watching a youtube video of a small workshop building Turkish saz's, they have a machine set to drill the body then change for a large plug cutter and cut a dowel on the end of the neck.
So I built a table to fit to my lathe and drilled both the body and the neck and glued in a nice tight hardwood dowel.

Keith.

[Keith Ambridge]

And these two are my babies!

The larger one is my first attempt at building with staves (sapele) and the small one is carved from solid mulberry.





Mulberry is the traditional wood for baglamas, bouzoukis (and saz's in Turkey). The mulberry in these instruments (and the twins that I'm making now) came from a tree in the village that I live.
I helped my neighbour (a builder) cut it down and my payment was the tree! Cut and converted in 2000!
I may have to call these the "Poti Collection"!

[Michael Lewis]

Guitars get the 9th fret marked and the mandolin family gets the 10th fret marked. Just because that's the way it has been done. I know many bluegrass musicians that play both guitar and mandolin fluently and they depend on the fingerboards being marked in the traditional manner.

[Neal Carey]

πολύ ωραία Keith! I tried to build a stave body for a tzoura for a challenge we had here a few years back, but only got about 3/4 done, but I may try again at some point.

Yours are really very nice. Good to see this kind of work here. Looking forward to seeing what you do after the New Year.

[Bryan Bear]

Color me impressed! How thick are the staves? In the photo showing the neck block and endgrain of the staves they appear to be much thicker than I envisioned. I suppose the thicker the better because it will help getting a good glue surface between the staves.

[Keith Ambridge]

Thanks Neal!

Bryan,
The Yew staves were 2.5mm and the Mulberry was 3mm by 15mm starting width.
The Mulberry bent like rubber bands and the Yew was pretty easy!
The RW strips were 1mm wide by 3mm deep and I did have difficulties with them!
I guess the staves look qiute thick because they are cut about 30 degrees from square because of the angle of the cone.

[Keith Ambridge]

Hi folks and happy new year,

I've finished all the shaping now, so all that's left is fine sanding and finishing.

"V" joint head.



It's twin on the right has a slightly more visible "V", I was holding it by the head in the vise while I was rasping the neck to shape and it snapped! Lots of foul language but I realised that only the glue had given way (no splinters at all) so I cleaned the glue off and epoxied it back together. I think a "V" should be seen anyway!!



I'm very happy with how the body to neck joint has ended up so I won't need to put a veneer cap over it. This is how I wanted it anyway.



And this is it for now, next pictures will be the finished instruments.



Keith.

[Christ Kacoyannakis]

Very nice work. That neck joint is spot on!

[Keith Ambridge]

Thanks Christ,
do you know a wood called Αθανατος (Immortal), it has been mentioned to me by Greek friends but they have no idea of other names for it!

Keith.

[Christ Kacoyannakis]

That's a new one to me. Never heard of any wood called that. I will do some checking and get back to the forum. I know several makers in Greece who might help.

[Christ Kacoyannakis]

I asked several people, and they all said Athanatos (immortal) is not a wood. It is the name for a plant. The plant is a cactus, similar to Agave, and found all over Greece. The plant does not produce wood. It is a succulent. One person mentioned that in the old days, they used to use fibers from the plant to make strings for bows for Greek lyra (a violin type instrument, but played held on the knee, like a very small cello). It could be that in a certain part of Greece, they have nicknamed a certain type of very hard wood (boxwood or a type of hornbeam perhaps) as immortal. Greeks are big on nicknames.