As to request from "Smith, W.L." <muse5@fel.tno.nl> of
tuning the

        Cordephon Zither

maybe the following article can help:

Diatonic Zither Plans
*********************

These plans were contributed by Josh Farthing (joshf39471@aol.com), who
originally posted them on "news:rec.music.makers.builders"

On Zither Construction

Here are my diatonic zither plans.  They are adapted from a plan in
"Musical Instruments Made to be Played" by Ronald Roberts (Dryad Press,
Leicester, England; 2nd Edition, 1967).

As of 9/24/95, I have made three instruments following [more or less]
these plans.  I also have made a small hammered dulcimer that followed
these plans fairly closely.  So while I'm no expert, I do have some
experience with what follows.  Comments and constructive criticism are
always welcome.

1. Get Materials

The original plans called for 1/8" stock for the upper and lower
sides.  The closest supply of lumber is a nearby Builders Square; the
best they can do is 1/4" poplar stock.  That's all I've used, and I've
been very pleased with the results, except that the Hammered dulcimer
has a bit too much sustain.

I use a 1/4" x 8" x 3' poplar piece for the upper and lower sides and
some 1" X 2" maple stock for the rest of the sides.

To complete the project, I use 15 hitch pins, 15 zither tuning pegs,
string in gauges 4 - 9, and some coat hanger wire.

I use hitch and tuning pins and wire from Elderly Instruments (1100 N.
Washington, P.O. Box 14249, Lansing, Michigan 48901-4249).  I believe
you can write for their free catalog.  Goose Acres Music, a local folk
music shop, also has these items in stock.

2.  Cut Top / Bottom

The poplar piece will be the upper and lower sides.  Make a diagonal
cut so that one side is 11" and the other side is 25".

    |\
    | \
    |  \
25" |   |
    |   | 11"
    |___|

Actually what you've done is divided the original poplar piece into two
equal sections.  One will be the upper side, the other will be the
lower side.

I like to plane both pieces a bit at this point.  I find I can get a
better surface than the one provided by the mill.  Also, 1/4" stock is
pretty thick for musical instruments.  I figure the thinner I can get
it, the better the sound will be.  But I usually stop planing a side
when the blade of the plane can cover the entire side.

Note: this and other diagrams orient the upper side as shown.  You can
also reverse the construction so that the 11" side is on the left, the
25" side is on the right.

Terminology Note:  The poplar piece is used for the UPPER and LOWER
sides of the instrument.  These are not to be confused with the top,
bottom, left, and right sides, which will be made out of maple.

3.  Prepare Sides

The left and right sides should be 1/4" - 1/2" thick.  I've been able
to approximate these thicknesses by gluing the instrument up with the
3/4" thick sides sticking halfway out of the instrument.  (See the
following diagram.)  When the glue is dry, I cut off the excess width
using the edges of the upper and lower sides to guide my handsaw.

The top piece should be 1.5" thick - achieved by gluing two lengths of
3/4" stock together.

The bottom piece is the normal width.

As to the length of the pieces, well, use the uppper or lower piece
(and the following diagram) as your guide.

The sides fit together with rabbet joints cut in the top and bottom
sides as shown in the following diagram.

                 |\
                 | \
                 |  \ <- Top Side
                 |_  \
              ___  |  \
             | | | |   \
             | | |  \  _\
             | | |   \ |  ___
Left Side -> | | |    \| | | |
             | | |       | | | <- Right Side
             |_|_|  ___  |_|_|
                  _|   |_
                 |_______| <- Bottom Side

Note the lines down the middle of the left and right sides showing how
they will be cut to size once all sides are glued together.  (See first
paragraph in this chapter.)

The Bottom side is a bit misleading - the depth of the rabbet cut is
usually 2/3 - 3/4 the width of the side.  (The diagram shows a cut
that's half the width of the side.)  A more accurate representation of
the rabbet joint on the bottom side is the following (not to 'scale'
with the previous diagram):
   _____
  |     |
 _|     |_  <- Bottom Side
|_________|

4. Glue Sides onto Lower Piece

To start the gluing process, I glue the top and bottom [maple] sides to
the lower [poplar] side.  This gives me a chance to precisely align the
corners (especially on the top side).  Once the glue has dried on these
pieces, I am able to fine-tune the fits of the left and right side
pieces before I glue them in.

By the way, I've used yellow carpenter's glue on these projects.

5. Drill Sound Hole

Drill a 2" hole into the upper (poplar) piece.  The center of the hole
should be centered, 9" from the lower edge.

6. Glue On Upper Piece

Not much to say here.  Except that I like to glue a piece of paper with
my name and the date onto the bottom piece before I close up the box.
It'll be tricky to do this once the box is together.

7.  Bridges

You'll need two bridges, one for the upper edge, one for the lower
edge.  The bridges should be about 1/4 - 3/8 " high, 1/2 - 3/4" wide.
The long side will be glued face down on the front of the instrument.

Round the side of the bridges that will face up.

Cut a shallow groove along the top of each bridge.  This groove will
hold a length of coat hanger wire.  My first zither had plain wood
bridges.  The string tension made grooves in the bridges, and after a
few weeks, the lower strings started to buzz in their grooves.  Placing
the strings on top of a piece of wire fixes this buzzing.  (It also
makes for a less "warm" sound, but it fixes the buzzing problem.)

Glue the bottom bridge flush with the bottom of the zither.

Glue the upper bridge so that it's middle is more or less over the edge
of the top side.  See the following diagram.
       ___
 _____/___\__ <-Bridge
|____________ <-Upper Side
|      |
|      |      <-Top side
|______|_____
|____________ <-Lower Side
                (Cross-section)

By placing the bridge at this point, it receives support from the top
side but is able to transmit vibrations to the upper side.

8.  Mark Tuning peg and Hitch Pin placement

Not much of a trick here; simply mark off 15 evenly spaced points along
the upper edge of the upper side and the exposed face of the bottom
side for the placements of the tuning pegs and hitch pins.  (See
section 3 for a discussion of which goes where.)

Leave about 1/2 inch between the end strings and the sides of the
instrument.

Alternate the placement of pins on the bottom side of the instrument
for strength:
            _______________
           |               |
Wrong/Weak | XXXXXXXXXXXXX |
           |_______________|

            _______________
           |               |
Right/     | X X X X X X X |
Strong     |  X X X X X X  |
           |_______________|
                        (end views)

I prefer to make these marks now, so that the final sanding can erase
any pencil or marking gauge marks.  I also like to mark the positions
with a tap with a hammer/nail set.  This makes a mark that
sanding/finishing won't erase.

9.  Finish

After final sanding, I've used Minwax Wood Finish to finish the piece
and Minwax Finishing Paste to complete the piece.

I finished my hammered dulcimer with Tung Oil (both inside and outside
sides).  This instrument has a lot of volume and sustain - not great on
a hammered dulcimer, but very good on a zither.  Note that this might
be more to do with my choice of materials than my finishing compounds.

10.  Drill tuning peg and hitch pin holes

Drill holes for the pegs and pins in the spaces marked in step 11;
place the pins into the pin holes; screw the pegs partway into their
holes.

Place the hitch pins at a slight angle so as to keep the strings flush
with the face of the instrument.

11.  String the instrument

The original plans called for tuning the instrument with string gauges

Number:1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 11 12 13 14 15
Gauge: 9  9  9  8  8  7  7  6  6  5  5  4  4  4  4
Note:  A  B  C# D  E  F# G  A  B  C# D  E  F# G  A
       <Lowest>                          <Highest>

(I'll refer to the string 'numbers' in the following section.)

I've seen a few plans that call for using one string for two notes, but
I find one string for each note works best (especially when they're
different notes.)  One string/note is easier to tune and also puts less
strain on the hitch pins.

To use one string for each note (or to prepare the 15'th [extra] string
in a double-strung instrument), you need to know how to make a loop
that can be used to attach the string securely to the hitch pin.
Professionally strung zithers and hammered dulcimers have fancy looped
ends, I've been successful with 3-5 twists of wire with the end
oriented perpendicularly to the main string.

Something like the following:
 _
/ \
\_|
  |>
 <|
  |>
 <|___
  |

The idea here is that if the string is pressed onto the
surface/soundboard enough, the free end won't be able to unwind.
There's a better description of this technique (and a description of
the 'professional' technique) in "The Modern Harpsichord" by Wolfgang
Zuckermann.

12. Tune the instrument

If you know your tuning, you might want to skip this section.
Otherwise, read on.  (Note to temperament buffs: I've made the
assumption that the zither will only be played in one key.  Therefore,
the following intervals can be made pure without too much trouble.)

I gave the notes for the strings in the previous section.  You can sit
next to a reference instrument (e.g. piano), and tune the Zither with
it note by note.

That's the easy way.  But it's not the cowboy way.

Once you get the hang of it, tuning the Zither by itself is faster and
more accurate than the easy way described above.  Unless you intend to
be accompanied on the instrument you'd tune with.

The first thing to do is establish a "home base" note.  Tune string 4
to the D above middle C.  All the rest of the tuning will be based on
this note.

Tune string #6 up a third from the home base.  The second note in the
tune "When the Saints Go Marching In" is up a third from the first
note.

Tune string #7 up a fourth from the home base.  The second note in the
tune "Amazing Grace" is up a fourth from the first note.

Tune string #8 up a fifth from the home base.  The second note in the
tune "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is up a fifth from the first
note.

Tune string #9 up a sixth from the home base.  The second note in the
tune "The Holly and the Ivy" is up a sixth from the first note.

Tune string #5 so string #8 is a fourth above it.

Tune string #10 up a third from string #8.

We've now tuned all the notes in the octave.  Unless the tuning of the
home base has changed since we started, strings 4 - 10 should be in
tune.

Now to finish the tuning, we'll tune the rest of the strings an octave
away from their tuned counterparts.  The first two notes in "Somewhere
Over the Rainbow" are an octave apart.

This means that strings 1, 2, and 3 should be an octave below strings
8, 9, and 10 respectively.  And strings 11-15 should be an octave above
strings 4-8 respectively.

And voila!  You've just tuned the zither.  This is the way piano tuners
work - by tuning a central octave and tuning the other notes by
octaves.

13.  Playing the Instrument

There's a major scale (do, re, mi, and so on) starting at string 4.
There are two minor scales, starting at strings 2 and 5.  It's great
for playing Christmas tunes.  Pluck the strings as if you were playing
a harp.  Try playing notes in thirds or sixths.

Enjoy!  And if you do, please let me know.

Josh Farthing
1616 Maywood
South Euclid, OH 44121

JoshF39471@AOL.COM