In the area of string tension and a VERY unique plaything....

[thefishinmusician]

Question ,all of you luthiers who think they know more than me, and DO!!!...I found this possibly South American beauty a couple years ago...No nut or bridge to go by...Kind of like the first real Strar Trek when the aliens didn't know how to put the human back together again..SO.....I made it a 12 string thing, with octaves on the high strings...tuned it to A,....It held up well for a couple months, then it began to buckle a bit on the top side of the sound hole...Loosened strings and let it sit..I would like to make it go again, as, it was louder than the accoustic guitars that I used it to jam with!!!!...And the sound of this high strung octave instrument was UNBELIEVABLE!!!!...SO...Question.....Should I put a small..(possibly graphite composite )..brace where it was buckling??...And,....what string Gauges would one recomend for this????The scale is very close to mandolin....AND!!!!!...What the hell is this darned thing????....Don't put your lips on it son....get away from that darnded thing!!!!

[thefishinmusician]

O.K. sorry for the lousy shots...I'll get some better full sixe soon

[Paul Breen]

Google Waldzither, I think that is what you might have.

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

This is a banduria. It is Portugese in origin. GHS and LaBella make string sets for them. I've seen them like this as well as with the tuners mounted on the tailpiece. I do not know the tuning.

This is from "Just Strings"

A plucked lute, a hybrid of the guitar and cittern families, found in Spain and parts of Latin America. It has a small, cittern-shaped body with comparatively deep ribs, flat back, short fretted neck, and large peg-holder with pegs projecting from the rear as on a guitar. The strings pass over a large central soundhole and are usually fixed to a string-holder, In Spain a púa (plectrum) is used to pick out melody. Courtesy of New Grove DMI © 1995.

Now you know as much as I do.

Joshua

[Doug T]

Someday I'll have to put my weirdo instrument up, but first I've gotta get a better camera. I have a 14 stringed instrument almost the same size as a banduria but with a miniature banjo body. I've sorta thought of it as a bandurjo. The head-stock has a metal plate that says "EGMOND" on it. I've been told that places like the West Indies have a lot of mixed African/Portuguese instruments. Anyone seen anything like that?

[thefishinmusician]

Banduria it is!! Thanks!

[K Magalis]

Egmond was a Dutch manufacturer of stringed instruments. John Lennon and George Harrison allegedly played Egmonds in the early days.

[Doug T]

Cool, thanks. Interesting that such a strange and somewhat wonderous little instrument came from somewhere I'd think it would not have.

[thefishinmusician]

Also, thanks for finding the origin of my Banuria!! I thought for sure it was S.Am. by the looks of it....It just goes to show, there's allways one thing you can ALLWAYS know is that.....you never know....P.S....is ther anyone knowledgeable about string tension that could help me figure out what gauges of strings I could use to keep this thing stung to an A that wouldn't cause it to fight back by destroying itself ? Another star trek inference?