MIMF

This was both my first attempt at woodworking, and my first attempt at building an instrument. The project has reached the point where the most prudent thing to do is to scrap it and start over. While I've made quite a few mistakes, I've also learned what not to do next time. I think I'll scale back...

David King wrote:Hi Gary, Welcome! It seems like every 4th person here is in Oregon. Whereabouts are you? I'd love to see a picture or two of your efforts.

I posted a couple pictures in this thread: http://www.mimf.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php ... 089#p43089

Here's the body of the zither. I originally thought I'd use stain/varnish on the natural wood grain, but the birch plywood I used for the back and soundboard doesn't really have very nice-looking grain, so I'm going to go with the look of the original and go with a glossy black finish, with some kin...

David King wrote:Hi Gary, Welcome! It seems like every 4th person here is in Oregon. Whereabouts are you? I'd love to see a picture or two of your efforts.

I'm in Eugene. I've just glued the soundboard on, so after some sanding and finishing I'll be ready to take some pix.

I'm retired and got interested in instrument building after I made a cigar box guitar. It turns out that my fingers are too stubby for a fret board, so I looked around for a non-fretted stringed instrument I could play, and discovered that my fingers are well suited to a zither (with picks) and to t...

Welcome Gary. Sounds like a fun project. You can still buy zither pins if you want to replace the old ones. Thank you. Yes, I already have new zither pins for it. And I used an online string calculator to work out the best string gauges for all 41 strings. They all came out, not unexpectedly, prett...

I just discovered this forum, so I thought I'd introduce myself and my project. I'm 70 and retired, with almost no woodworking experience, and what little music knowledge I remember from taking piano lessons as a kid. After building a cigar box guitar and discovering that my fingers are too fat and ...