HI Rudi, On my thinner topped table, the top is solid spruce. On the perfekta table, the top is sycamore. Here in the States, sycamore is kind of a soft hardwood, similar in density to mahagony. The best sound I ever had was on a mahagony dining room table that I found at a yard sale and put in my s...

HI Rudi, I"m wondering how the volume and bass response of this table is, since it has a frame to support the zither rather than a solid surface. I have made a number of portable zither tables and the best sounding ones that I have made have rather thick solid tops. The current one I'm using ha...

Hi Tom, For your fingerboard strings there are a number of possibilities. The A strings are just plain steel. Standard is around .014". You can go to any guitar shop and get a couple of .012" plain steel strings and give those a try for the A. For D, the standard zither string is either a ...

Where as guitar strings are a simple matter of diameter and length, zither strings are different. The fingerboard strings are similar to guitar strings but the size of the core is smaller and the size of the winding is a bit larger. This yields a string of lower tension but similar diameter. Zithers...

A clean fingerboard is a happy fingerboard! It's also a good idea to SPARINGLY apply a little mineral oil to the fingerboard to keep it from drying out and cracking. You only need to do this maybe once a year if that. A little goes a long way. I've seen too many old zithers with cracked fingerboards...

HI Tom, To remove the machines, you unscrew the screws that hold the plate to the body. Do not unscrew the screws that hold the machines to the plate. These two screws are the ones next to the C post and the inside A post. Once the screws holding the plate are removed, the machines should lift out b...

Hi Tom, Being able to play a simple triad is indeed one of the big hurdles to get over. Basically, your index finger has to cover twice the distance as your middle finger to get the chord to sound. You use what guitar players call a rest stroke. Your index finger glides over the adjacent G and D str...

Hi Tom, I struggled with the Darr book when I first started and broke a lot of strings. I've never found a zither player who used the Ab as their first accompaniment string. If I were you, I would save myself a lot of grief and just get a new set of strings for your instrument. You will want the con...

The best cure I have found for loose tuning pins is to put a sliver of mahogany veneer into the hole. When I replace the pin, this veneer gets crushed a bit and takes up the necessary room. This fix is quick, simple, and lasts for years of constant use. The bit of veneer that I have is 1/28" th...

The table acts as an amplifier for the instrument. If you put cork under the feet, that insulates the instrument from the table top and thus you get nothing in the way of sound from the table. The bigger the table the more bass response and volume you get. The air space enclosed by the table doesn't...