Hi Mike, i just saw your post. I have a thread going called Restoring my 1930s Chord Zither on this forum that I hope you found. Your zither is similar to mine but yours is a mor expensive model. I had the same problem with the strings pulling the old horse glue apart when I tried to tune it. I woun...

I'm sure this website has been posted but I can't find it on the forum so I will share it here. After a lot of digging through pages on Google, i came across this gem - http://www.fretlesszithers.net/gz_home.htm Created by Kelly Williams, it is a nice collection of information about fretless zithers...

It looks like the website for http://www.pickaway.press/fz/cz.html is no longer active. Does anyone know if the content was saved or moved anywhere? I am not sure if it is the same site, but someone directed me to a site a few months ago that had a lot of resources like string gauge charts and more ...

Hi Rudi, thanks for the response. Just to clarify, this is a replica of the original note stand that would have come with this zither. The holes were factory drilled through the outer frame of the instrument body outside of the tuning pin holes. Most zithers I have seen were manufactured with these ...

Thanks Tom! If I come across some smaller guage steel I would consider making them by request. They are not difficult to bend in a vice. I also polished it up with steel wool, and then gave it a coating of floor wax to fill in the metal pores and keep it shiny for a few years. I'm not sure if you ha...

I also did my best to replicate the original music holder that is missing.

I posted this in the other forum, but I am adding it here so that the details of this restoration can be found in one place.

My zither is turning out more beautiful than I expected. More pics to come of the results, but I decided that if I am going to display this thing it needs a good table stand. I made this today.

And done.

I took a piece of steel bar I had laying around and made myself a music stand. It is a heavier gauge steel than the original so I had to enlarge the holes. But i think it came out very nice.

Next repair: that crack running across the top is going to keep the body from resonating like it should, and could buzz or break worse so I had to deal with it. Here is one section with the crack 20230814_231855.jpg On the top I lined the crack with painters tape to isolate it, put super glue in the...

For those of you following along at home I have some progress to report. I purchased this zither last month on Facebook marketplace. It had never been played by the previous owner and had several major issues keeping it from being more than a wall hanging. Structurally it was missing 2 strings, 2 ot...