Zozef Terzivasian Bouzouki Repair

A friend brought me this to repair..

The neck had come loose from the Dakos, the Kapaki was cracked and damaged in many places and the neck had come forward,

It was completely unplayable.

Some images below show how it was and the repair.

All the original components were re-used

 

 

The next step was to carefully dismantle this to remove the fingerboard, Kapaki and then the neck...

The fingerboard came off very cleanly as it must have been glued with psarogolla.

The Kapaki Also came off cleanly..

I was quite surprised how rough the interior work was.. it looks like the internal braces had been previously moved... I have taken a full set of measurements - was this a genuine zozef? 

Some minor cracking in the Kapaki - You can see under the brace the knot of the wood was left in, its covered by the figoura..

This must have been a very economical top..

Cleats were cut from my oldest spruce to fix all cracks..

Covering the label so we dont get it dirty or damaged...

 

The Skafos was very weak and had no kerf lining - this started to crumble around the edges.... After cleaning this up i decided to add some thin kerf lining to strengthen the Skafos and all allow the top to sit.

The neck was so loose and came out with a few gentle taps... you can see that veneers were put in to set the neck... not very good...

When inspecting it was clear that the Dakos was cracked on both sides..

Dakos Repair with softwood Dowelling 

Neck Joint Repair and Re-attach...

Add Veneer to Joint

Neck Glued back in - Perfect fit.. Set it slightly more back than original to give bridge height of 11mm.

Glue Kapaki back on with fish glue..

Glue Fingerboard fish glue..

Refret and New Bindings (Bindings were only thing that are new - old were so brittle and snapped beyond salvation)

Finishing and Setup... I only have a Video but will ask the owner to send me

some pictures 

Enjoy and Thanks for Looking