Zither sound

I have been searching on YouTube for the sound of the zither.

Etienne de Lavaulx from Melbourn on his 5-chord mandolin zither:

How about Ekim Beau on his 126 string (!) cross harp zither:

And this is a guzheng, a Chinese zither:

Overview

Now that I finished gluing it back together, it is time to take a step back and look at the zither:

Yes, there is still a lot of work to be done.

New parts !

I found a zither company in Germany: Zitherbau K.Marko, http://zitherbau-k-marko.de/

New parts are on their way:

• Stimmwirbel (tuning pins)
• Stimmschlüssel (tuning key)
• Saitenöl (oil for cleaning and protecting the strings)

More gluing

I decided to reuse the original back plate. Although it broke into several pieces when I removed it, I think with some careful gluing I can get it back on. I wonder what this will do to the sound of the zither though...

The stone blocks are there to press the back plate on the braces.

Those were all the wood clamps I could find. :-)

You can see the glue oozing out at the joints. The polyurethane glue foams a lot, but once dried, it can easily be removed. I will sand and fill any imperfections later, before I put on a new layer of paint.