8 string 'newzouki'

[Dave Bagwill]

Here ya go. Thanks.

[Dave Bagwill]

I suppose the key is the 'moderately tapered' reamer you mentioned - the only reamer I have is for peg-holes, and that taper is too sever for this bushing hole.
Stewmac has a nice one for $127.00.

[ken cierp]

The cheapo reamer from Harbor Freight will work --- I'd use a 6mm drill for the peg holes if the tuners are separate, 1/4" if on a plate to allow for mis-alignment. Just ream the bushing hole for a press fit, it makes no difference if you distort part of the peg hole as long as a section of the entry point is intact.

[Dave Bagwill]

Okey-dokey, thx. Yeah they are 4-on-a-plate, I drilled for the bushings first then the 1/4" for the posts.
Will do/

[Dave Bagwill]

Ended up using a stepless bit in the hand drill and it worked excellently.
BTW that little toolbox from Stewmac, given to me by a student, is a very handy little set of tools

[Dave Bagwill]

Tomorrow or Monday morning we will see if the fish glued-on bridge stays in place or pops off that torrefied top. I'm slotting the bridge now, using 4 holes for 8 strings; a little tricky. I'll have to turn the pins backwards so the slot is away from the strings.

Here is the method I'm using.
http://www.anzlf.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=354

[Dave Bagwill]

A few pix from the saddle work.
First I had to clean out that saddle slot using the dremel - I want a good tight fit, and the routed slot had a couple of very slight imperfections.
I have a full-scale printout of the nut and saddle spacings from the Bouzouki Book by Graham McDonald. I used that printout to mark the saddle slots (yes, the saddle is slotted for the strings) and then cut the slots - just placeholders basically - 2 each of 10's, 17's, 30's and 40's.
Sanded the radius on the saddle top using the fb radius stick.
Then I sanded some ramps at the suggested locations using my fav tool - a popsicle stick with sandpaper - and clamped that little red square in the right spot for me to put the edge of the stick against and get a good, square ramp.
Drilled the two remaining holes for the pins and put a bit of countersink on them, did a bit of reaming and got a good fit, slots to the rear!

I took a shot of the saddle angle, which is about 8*, I think the pic shows it okay.

More pix of the string slots process later on.