One day before the 2012

The fin-head bouzouki!

For the last two weeks, I was trying to find ways designing a guitar-bouzouki (κιθαρομπουζουκο), which would combined a bowl and flat back.

Inspired by some Renaissance and Baroque style guitars, I already had designed the first model of guitar-bouzouki with a flat back created by staves of Rio Rosewood, unlike the current construction of guitars, with a solid wood panels.

At my first attempts to combine the bowl and flat extensions, the luthier Tasos Theodorakis, had analyzed the technical difficulties which any luthier would face in an attempt to create such an instrument.(especially placing the sound hole above a small volume of air, due to the space covered by the wooden "takos" at the "xelidoni" connection.

Giannis Tsoulogiannis also pointed out the risks of static strength produced by an instrument of bowl and flat back combination. He seemed very positive, from the other hand, regarding the creation of the same instrument with a flat back and staves, giving me his feedback for dimensions of the flat construction.

In one of my last designs, I created on paper a bowl bouzouki body with 24.5 cm max. width, 37.5cm max. length and 14 cm approx. maximum depth. I then extended the side capping strips (παραπετια) away from its body's counter lines, at the front part of the resonator. The flat parts of its body designed to have a the depth equal to the depth of the violin's body.

It is a weird design...I thought...! From the back, it looks as a bouzouki instrument has fins on both sides. A fin-head bouzouki !

Next step, was to design its body in a 3D application, and examine the static strength and the volume of air. "What a bizarre shape and design", I said to myself, after finishing the 3d model and generating some final renders .

These days I am constantly asking myself:
"From all the 200 designs you have created in the "Art Book" of this blog, why you ended up applying a patent for the weirdest one? " I still cant answer this question.

Is certain that this design needs a lot of intense testing by a luthier, before we are able to extract any conclusions regarding its static analysis and its sound.

From the other hand, the flat back version created by staves, looks as a very tempting and attractive idea, since the instrument will have high durability due to its flat body, its wide neck, and its short scale (65 cm).








The fin-head Bouzouki


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