The fretboard is made of ebony.  It is cut to length, but not tapered.  The fret slots are cut into the fretboard first, and then the fretboard is tapered, and bound with binding to match the body.  Then small dots are inlaid in the binding to mark the fret positions.  They are glued in with cyanoacrilate glue.

The front fret markers are then inlaid, just like all the other inlays.  First the inlays are cut out, and traced onto the fretboard.

Then the cavities are routed with a flexible shaft router in a base.

Finally, the inlays are glued into the fretboard with black cyanoacrilate glue.  When the glue dries, the inlays are sanded flush with the fretboard.  The fretboard is now ready to glue onto the neck.

The soundboard is surrounded with purfling and binding.  On higher end bouzoukis, the purfling usually consists of multi-line black and white purfling surrounding abalone strips.  The binding is then installed outside of that.  Unlike guitars, which have the binding installed with the narrow edge up, the bouzouki’s binding is installed with the wide side up.  First, a shallow rabbet is routed into the edge of the soundboard.  A slightly deeper rabbet is then cut into the first to accomodate the thickness of the binding.

The inner most purlfing is then glued to the soundboard using cyanoacrilate glue and held in place with push pins.  Then the abalone and outer purfling is glued in after that.

The binding is then bent and glued onto the edge of the soundboard and held in place with filament tape.  Once the glue dries, the binding is trimmed with a router and a flush cut trimming bit, and sanded level with the top with a random orbit sander.  The top is now complete.

The finished top. 

The soundboard is glued to the body with instrument maker’s glue.  The body is placed in a special fixture, which holds the body and instrument making clamps.  Glue is applied to the kerfed lining and the top is held in place with the clamps and filament tape.

After the glue dries, the excess soundboard wood is removed with a router and a flush cutting bit.

The instrument with neck and top attached.

The back and sides of the body can be inlaid with various designs.  The inlays are usually placed on the wide capping strip, or on the side pieces, just above the capping strip.  This process is the same as inlaying the soundboard.  The inlays are cut from shell with a fine jeweler’s saw, and then are placed on the body in their exact location.  Trace around the inlays, and then with a flexible shaft router and a fine bit, route out the cavity to receive the inlay.  The cavity should be just a tiny bit shallower than the depth of the inlay.

Glue the inlays into their cavities with epoxy or super glue.  Sand the inlay flush with the body using a sanding block.  If you do not use a sanding block, the softer wood around the inlay will sand quicker than the hard shell, and the surface will not be flat.

The finished body inlays.

After the neck has been glued to the body, the body is lined with paper.  The paper acts as reinforcement to the seems of the staves.  Five pieces of paper are cut out and line the body, and then two more are cut out to line the tail block and head block.  They are glued to the body with hide glue, instrument makers glue, or Titebond.  Most luthiers in Greece use an embossed foil paper of various colors.  I use hand made, acid free, embossed paper.

The bowl completely lined.

Once the glue has dried, attach your label to the inside of the bowl.  Position it so it will be viewable through the sound hole.