Politiko Precision

A Bouzouki made like a Swiss watch!

These Holidays I finally found the time to bond with my Politiko bouzouki, and start getting a good grasp of its construction, and beautiful sound.

I must admit that I have not played a more clean, light, tight, symmetrical, and straight bouzouki construction ever before!

A good test to see the symmetry of your bouzouki instrument (especially of the bowl) is to put it in front of a mirror.You will easily then notice, even the smallest asymmetrical lines created on your instrument during its construction state.

The Politiko bouzouki, looks in reality as it is a creation made by two identical left and right pieces. As the instrument came out from a manufacture mechanical mold.That's how perfectly symmetrical this bouzouki construction is !

The construction also of the sound board and the bowl is very unique. Most of the bouzouki instruments I possessed, carry the famous small dent of the soundboard under the bridge, and the elevation angle of the soundboard towards the connection of the soundboard to the bowl at the tail piece area.

The Politiko bouzouki has a straight profile like the one someone can find on a taboura.

But the most amazing on this instrument is, the precision in calibration of the neck, strings, and bridge.

Playing with my Politiko bouzouki these days, I noticed that sometimes I was hitting the pick-guard with my pick.That never happened before playing with another bouzouki instrument.

I though I was doing something wrong, so I tried to position my right hand on a different angle.
At the end, I decided to measures the distance between pick-guard and strings at the bridge ,which is usually the highest distance of the strings.

On all of my other instruments the bridge (kavalaris) measures approx. 1.5-1.6 cm
Surprisingly the height of my Politiko kavalari measures just over 0.7cm, a difference of 1cm in height from all other bouzoukia I have in my possession. 

But the instrument construction is so amazingly straight and tight that even with only 0.6cm height of the strings on the bridge area, the instruments doesn't buzz anywhere across its neck length.

From a profile view, the Politiko bouzouki, is tuned and constructed with accuracy of an expensive Swiss watch!


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