double neck oud guitar conversion project underway!

as some of you know, ive been thinking on how to do this for a while. Thought of custom builds, but ultimately decided to mod an existing doubleneck baritone/guitar to oud/guitar.

Yaron Naor built the neck, and fits perfectly so far:


i then found a luthier in Chicago -- Rice Custom guitars -- to tackle the rest of the project. He sanded off the top:


and this is what we have:
.

The top was crappy plywood, anyway, so good riddance. He found a gorgeous maple top that will fit:





and now we're discussing how to optimize the interior to get a good solid body response from the guitar side, but open up the oud side even more:







Ill keep you posted!

so, no one's curious?

the oud portion has been fully hollowed out, and we're planning on a floating bridge type design, since we can put transducer - style pickups on the underside of the top:


we're sorting bridge material, bracing etc. Feel freet o chime in!

We have scalloped spruce top bracing!

A very interesting project guys. Thanks for sharing, it will be great to see how it all come together.

I do hope you put the Bigsby back on the oud side

Regards,

Greg