Microtonal balalaikas done!

Finally i have acquired two balalaikas, soprano(nylon strings) and
alto respectively, to use for microtonal refretting. The ones i
already have are gonna stay the way they are! Anyway, here you can see
pictures of the end results, if its not currently disabled for using
too much bandwidth:

http://enakasse.tripod.com/balalaika.html

And no they aren't actually purple, that's an artifact of the webcam
with certain surfaces that i'm trying to avoid getting. The soprano is
truly ugly though, both the "sunburst waves" on the back and the top
after i tried to replace some of the pre-printed graphic patterns with
my own design, but the old one wouldn't disappear completely. It does
play well enough after all the adjustment i did to it (including
making a new bridge) but the sound is very weak and dull, due to the
plastic back and cheap construction.

The alto sounds really good though, and it was also easier to work on
because the wood used for the neck/fingerboard was so much better and
wouldn't splinter as easily. I could go on for long about the mistakes
and fixes i had to make during the fretting, but that doesn't matter.
And now to the point, the tuning.

Theoretically they are fretted for 19-equal, but it actually
approximates anything from 16 to 20-equal by moving the bridge and
retuning the strings accordingly. Actually so far i don't enjoy
playing in 19 that much as 17, maybe because it is somewhat more
"familiar" to finger as the semitones are single fret steps. Also it's
good for melodies without many chords, which is what is played on the
Balalaika anyway.

I'm gonna try to do some recording soon, but i already have a couple
of other axes i haven't recorded anything with (steel string 12-tet
soprano Balalaika especially) so that might take some time. Anyway,
any comments and suggestions are welcome...

/Mats Öljare