OT: Fylde Octavius bouzouki FS
TarBabyTunes
B-II bouzouki, I guess I'll let this wonderful, faithful, hardy, rockin' Fylde
find a new home.
I've had it for almost two years now, and it has served me very well. It has a
rectangular Fender-type hard case and a gigbag from a Larrivee parlor guitar.
It has a 24.75" scale, guitar style pin bridge, cedar top and mahogany back and
sides and a teardrop shape (not that tired old garlic-bulb "Irish" shape!),
rosewood fretboard & bridge, black binding and a John Pearse armrest (really
helped the sound!) and a custom-cut, clear plastic pickguard that we stuck on
it to protect the cedar top. It has a zero fret, chrome tuners that work very
smoothly and reliably, a bone saddle and (I think) a plastic nut. I have kept
it strung in unisons, .042, .032, .020w, .013, for the time I've had it. No
pickup. I don't think there are any big ugly nicks in it, but there is a
scratch in the top, but it doesn't show much. Never any cracks nor any playing
weirdnesses.
Here is Roger Bucknall's Fylde website, have a look.
I want $1k + actual shipping from 47401 (Bloomington, Indiana).
Come & get 'er! <GG>
Thanks,
stv
Greg Thomas
month or so wait.
Greg
"TarBabyTunes" <tarbab...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20031126223906...@mb-m21.aol.com...
TarBabyTunes
month or so wait. >>
I keep meaning to take some pix of it and post 'em on the yahoo cittern list
site for display, but I never seem to get around to it.
I'll use some terms that are specific to Phil's instruments, so here is his URL
Mine is a B-II, 24.75" scale, with two points, cedar top and rosewood back and
sides with black binding. The depth is 4.25"!!! As deep as my SC OM PW!!
Amazing. The cedar top is lighter in color than I expected. The bridge and fb
are ebony. The bridge is hand-carved (all his are) and six inches long with a
compensated bone saddle, and the nut is bone. The fb has no inlays at my
request.
It has gold Grover tuners with ebony buttons and the headstock is bare, covered
with polished ebony. We designed a scroll with "P.W.Crump" enscribed on it and
Phil was to have a guy with a CNC machine make some of them but that didn't
work out so he left it bare. We have found an artist who works in piano-key
ivory and mastodon ivory and she will make the scroll and we'll figure out how
to have it inlaid later in '04.
The tailpiece is an Allen of cast brass, gold in color, with facility for
either ball- or loop-end strings.
The rosewood is really dark without much figure in it, but it does have two ...
'dimples' in the back pieces just inside the two points, so that it looks a bit
like the dimples above a woman's derriere, a very subtle effect (interpretation
is my own... <GG>) He sent along one of his characteristic pickguards of shiny
black plastic and tho I had originally visualized it w/o a pickguard, I have
stuck it on with some temporary adhesive and I think I'll mount it after all.
A friend with a cedar-topped S.O.Smith zouk says that he wishes now, after five
years, that he had left his on because he has scarred the top from playing it.
I have some clear stuff from StewMac that I may put on the top too... I have
that on the Fylde and it has worked wonderfully. I don't know... so far my
playing position doesn't bring much contact with the top. I may try a JP
armrest, an ebony Jr., but I don't hear a lot of difference with my arm off and
on the top...
It's loud. Really loud. It scared me it's so loud. It has a -lot- of lovely
low end, which I'm not really accustomed to in a zouk. I asked Phil what he
thought of it and he said that he had made himself one very similar but with
Braz b/s and that he couldn't tell which was nicer. He also said that he set
the action "high" because he plays "pretty hard" but I find it really
comfortable.
David Enke has sent me a #40 system for it. It has guitar-type (modified)
X-bracing and a rosewood (I think) bridge plate inside, so the two #20 elements
should fit on the ends of the plate next to the braces. David says that he
thinks that an under-bridge pickup, custom-cut, would give a "tighter" sound
with less body resonance and less vulnerability to percussion noises on the
top, but the bridge p/u would need a custom made Carpenter clamp for the 1/4"
output jack to be mounted externally. With a 4.25" depth, this sounds dodgy to
me.
Phil sez that he routinely drills thru the bridge AND the top (AAACK!!!) to
route wires for Baggs pickups to an internal jack, but I'm not interested in
that solution. I think the #40 will work fine. The #27 works great in the SC
OM PW.
I was talking with Phil and some other makers about a zouk and Phil said that
he had very few orders and that because of that I could have this one in four
months. Right. Well, I believed him. <GG> It's just thirteen months since I
sent him a deposit and I've had the zouk for two weeks now. There were some
really unfortunate events that delayed this one, or I would have had it in
about ten months.
I think I'm in love. Only one person has told me that it is too loud for Irish
sessions. That's a lot like headlight aim... set 'em for sport driving and if
one in a dozen flash at you on the highway to complain, they are just right.
<GGG>
What else can I tell you? I feel like I just wrote ten thousand words and I
was trying to be concise...
stv