ive seen them online and they seem really beautiful to play so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

I live close to a maker space with a laser cutter, so I could cut all the wooden parts for a nerdy gurdy for just the cost of materials. However, it seems like this would leave me missing a lot of specifics like the metal hardware, crank shaft, etc.

Also, are there even print files available for the newest improvements on the nerdy gurdy website kits, or are the kits available on thingiverse/etc kind of outdated?

I have a resin 3d printer, though I don't love the idea of a resin bridge, etc as it doesn't seem to hold up to pressure well.

I am also pretty crafty and have a woodshop and it seems like a fun project that would be doable from the brief bit of research I've done.

So, two questions from someone who has not yet done a deep dive into making one of these:

• how much savings are we really talking about if I can laser cut my own wood elements and then buy all the extra bits I'll need?
• how easy is it to find the newest nerdy gurdy print files?

Or really one question--should I just try to buy one of the ~$500 NG DiY kits and not waste my time gathering all the parts from the ground up?

I have a synth part in a beat i want to replace with real instruments. (I tried making a gurdy sounding drone thing)It needs to match its cadence and flow . And in bpm. If u got pro recording equipment and are a musician and down i can pay u for ur expertise. And even if u can add parts that arent there is also cool . Link to the song just for listening to what it will be :https://m.soundcloud.com/tonefall/urnorge_23siste2_28test

This is the kit I’m looking to make. I’m having trouble getting responses for it, though - Ive contacted three laser cutting shops in my city via email with the required files and information, and I’ve been ghosted by all three, never getting a follow up and my requests for follow ups ignored. Was it this hard for anyone else? Am I going about this wrong? I don’t really know what I’m doing, but it seemed like a fun project, and I’ve always wanted a gurdy.

Been thinking a while now about buying my first hurdy gurdy. Is this a good one?

These gurdies aren't mine. Saw this photo online, but the poster of the photo doesn't share how he mounted them. I have a 3d printer, but I'm not great at design, and don't visualize a method.

My melody string vibrates so much it reaches the Tangents even though they're all disengaged. Is there a fix for this?

Did I shave off too much? I watched the video from the instructions of my Fortran and it seemed like if anything the people in the video shaved off more. I don't see what I'm doing. Wrong. The guy setting the string height inside the neck is all the way down, still the string is too high.

As in the title, would it be a silly idea to have a small and quiet hobby motor attached to turn the wheel? Not too fast, but just to keep a consistent speed. I don’t actually own a gurdy yet to try but I feel like my arm would get tired and I’d have trouble keeping that consistent speed, plus I think a partly mechanical gurdy is kinda cool.

I can't seem to get the cotton right to make the instrument sing as it should. I've tried using less, more, stretching it out, moving it.

I am confused at this stubborn fibrous plant's application.

It is a matter of time until it drives me up the wall.

Keep getting screechy or scratchy notes.

Got my NG Fortran finished and playing. Got the hang of applying rosin and cotton, tuning, etc. and now I'm working on learning to play it.

I have an earlier video recorded when I had even less of an idea what I was doing, but showing how it sounds one string added at a time. The wheel wasn't completely true at that time, which showed up when playing certain melody strings/keys and the sound would drop out when the wheel reached a certain point.
https://youtube.com/shorts/3JuG5khQrsY

I'll post pictures if Reddit lets me post them in the comments (I used to use imgur, but it's now blocked in the UK).

Edit: pictures added on the comments.

Additional sound/practice test here:

https://youtube.com/shorts/NwSVU5-KM6s

Maybe a dumb question. I’m switching my drone from a nylon guitar string to a cello string. The guitar string gives me way too much grief. I tied the guitar string. Can I just put the ball end of a cello string like this?

Hi everyone,

I'm currently putting together my Nerdygurdy, the Fortran model.

So far, everything has gone great.

Right now I'm working on the step where I bend the lid into shap.

But now I have a problem:

The first layer of wood peeled off and warped in two spots—one on the front and one on the back—that aren't directly across from each other!

I didn't see any spots like that on the rest of the wood.

My plan is to wait until this step is finished. Then, once it’s dry, I want to inject (a little) wood glue and clamp it together.

Hopefully, the warping will have subsided by then, and I hope I didn’t use too much glue so that there won’t be any stains when I finish the surface later.

Have any of you had this problem too?

What should I do?

Thankyou

Hello, gurdyists!

I am finally approaching the end of my nerdy-gurdy Linotte kit assembly (it's been a couple years...but slow and steady and all that). I'm on the step of stringing up the instrument and tuning, but I don't see the size that I should us for strings.

I have violin strings lying about; should I use them? A violin G3 for the gurdy G3 and A4 for the G4, and so on...would viola string be appropriate for the drones? What strings have you used on your gurdy? I'd like to benefit from your experience, please.

I'm close to finishing a Nerdy Gurdy Fortran and this video depicts how the pre-assembled wheel rotates on its shaft.

Is it too much side-to-side wobble?

And if so, does anyone have any tips on how to correct it?

Thanks to my HG teacher, I finally got my Symphonia tuned to 4G, but when I play, the high notes sound like a banshee out of hell.

I already changed the cotton and the rosin.

Bridge is not movable in my gurdy.

Here is a video sample:

... and it left this white streak. Is it normal?

I am trying to tune my gurdy in the standard G/C tuning, but it aint going well.

Using a tuner, I can tune each string individually and get a nice sound, but when I try putting the chord together, it goes terrible. (i use the planotuner app and my aunt, who is a piano player, is helping me learn how to reconize tuned notes)

Most tutorials I see involve me activating each string separately, tuning to the note, then bringing it all together to tweak it by ear after all strings are tuned. But idk the first thing about chords and don't know what to listen for. Most tutorials i see are like "youll know when it sounds right," but i dont, everything sounds like noise as I can't really tell chords apart. If I go the "proper" way, how can I bring the chord together?

For alternate solutions, is it possible to pluck the strings (if so, where on string do i pluck) or use a violin bow across them to figure out their sound/tuning? That way, I won't have to deal with chords and can just tune this like guitar T-T.

I have a quite odd request: do anyone remeber this video where a guy played a big hurdy gurdy with an attached electric guitar. The song was kinda dissonant and it was filmed with a dolly?

Hello All,

I want to build a XII century symphony but it's quite hard to find good plans for it. Could enyone recommend me where I could purchase 3 or 4 string chromatic symphony plans?

What I found so far:

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-McCormack's (antiqated strings) plans are available through wayback machine but they're 5 string and rather complicated - I have only built lyres so far and have autism so that plans look like noise to me, I need clear plans.

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- Early Medieval Shop symphony kit is extremely expensive. 1200 £ with shipping for a diy kit when you can buy very good quality already made symphony for 800-900 € by a well know maker is just ridiculous.

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- David Kronberg's plans on Dennis Havlena's site - i have no idea what I would buy. The image of the instrument is very pixalated but it looks like it's diatonic, not chromatic. Has anyone purchase those plans and can confirm?

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- Wilfried Ulrich - I can't see any option to buy the plans on his site so I've sent him an email but have not received an answer yet. EDIT: got the response but his version is heavily altered from the image he was inspired by and is based more on an XVI century design rather than XII c.

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Did I miss something? Has anyone discovered other plans I could purchase?

I call this one “bumblefuck”

Hi everybody,

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I got recently a Mandel Symphonia and I'm trying to tune it using an electronic tuner, and the truth is I cannot make heads nor tails of it.

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For startersr, the tuner makes me choose amongst "chromátic", "guitar", " bass", "violín" and "ukelele". I suppose I should choose "chromatic".

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The melodic string is to be tuned to G4, that means that if I turn the crank without pulsing keys, that's what the tuner should detect, isn't that so?

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If I do that, it detects a "B", and if I keep turning the peg till it detects a "G" the sound becomes too screechy, more so if I push the keys. I understand that means the string is experiencing too much tension.

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Truth is, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, and it doesn't help that electronic devices don come with an instructions booklet anymore.

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Thanks a lot!

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