Does anyone have experience of flattening a warped front? I have seen a zither I like the look of on e-bay, but the front board has a distinct outwards bulge around the oval sound hole. Otherwise it looks to be in very good shape, with no other warping and all joints tight.

Is it something to avoid like the plague, or only cosmetic, or is there a fix?

Advice from guitar builders seems to be that a guitar doesn't reach its full potential until it HAS developed a bow in the front.....

Any advice would be welcome!

Graham-

I would recommend that you contact Sasha Radicic who is in St Louis, MO. He is master luthier and is highly skilled at zither restoration and guitar making. He has refurbished two zithers of mine over the past number of years, both of which are pictured elsewhere on this Zither Forum (both antiques). I couldn't be happier with the results.

Thanks Don. However, I am in England. Mr. Radic has not replied to previous correspondence either.

Graham-

Do you have Sasha's email address? If no, it is: radicicguitars@gmail.com

He has attained Master level in zither making and repairs while working with HartwigMusik in Munich in the late-1990s before coming to St Louis, MO. He may be able to refer you to someone for zither repair either in the UK or in the EU; short of sending your instrument across the ocean to him here in the US. Hopefully he will reply to your email messages. Best of luck and good wishes to you for the coming Christmas holidays!

Hi Graham. Sorry I didn't pick this up earlier. I have experience repairing many old zithers.
As a practical matter I would avoid an instrument with a pronounced bow. In some cases this is due to separation rom the struts or support cross-pieces. In these cases, the bow is usually outwards and can be often repaired by re-gluning the soundboard to the strut; it may require an additional strut beside the existing strut. But an inward bow usually means a warped, or twisted sound board and in my experience really can't be readily repaired (perhaps others could do so; don't accept this as definitive). I should probably say a small deflection (perhaps 1/4" from the horizontal) may not affect the playability that much, hard to say. Sometimes these decorated old zithers make attractive wall art.
Dan

Stumbled across this thread while trying to discover the correct front board shape!
Do the main transverse braces keep the top 'flat'....or do they introduce a slightly convex shape across the top???
(...as in an acoustic guitar)

Kev

Flat! The bow in mine is accidental, due to age and probably storage in an attic or barn!