La Zanfoña

This was a birthday gift for my musically- and building- inclined 35 year old son. His wife said they had fun putting it together (so much that she immediately ordered something for herself), and the end result played just as it should.

The model is really awesome looking, especially when painted. I have a blast with assembling it.

The 4 stars are for the sound of it. I find the video tutorial about tuning lacking - how to apply rosin? How much should I sand the wheel? What to do if the wheel does not rotate properly (in an axis) even though the pieces were tightly fit together (I fought with that wobble for 2hours and couldn’t fix it). What to do if the strings do not touch the wheel for the whole 360° which can be tested only after assembling it whole? Why my bouxyz string is not sounding properly? Etc etc. I was fighting with all of that for 3h and got one string working, barely

I have just finished my Hurdy-Gurdy and I’m so excited to try to play some tunes now! I received this as a birthday present, I’d seen some of your products online and wanted one. When I was asked if I wanted something that would just sit there to look at, or something that “did something”, of course I wanted a moving model! I had not seen the Hurdy-Gurdy for sale, so I was very excited when I opened my gift.

I thought that it would be hard to follow the directions, as it is almost all in pictures, but the pictures are VERY well done! And I appreciated very much that there are several extra parts included. I did run out of wax, but I was probably just trying to make sure that parts would move as smoothly as possible. I found some beeswax to finish.
It took me much longer than the 5 hour estimate, but I went slowly on purpose, because it was so much fun, and I am very meticulous.
Thanks for such great fun!

Have really enjoyed putting this together and hope that you included a lot of extra pieces that I didn't use or could find directions for use in the instruction manual. Please advise.

Thanks for your reply.
Best regards. Luis Gonzalez

The hurdy-gurdy was a gift from Santa Claus and I really enjoyed the assembly and the magnificent final result. A great product. A technical question: how can I remove the head / keyboard for maintenance, for example to change the elastic of the keys? Thanks in advance. Luis

This is a gift to me. I was astonished by how amazing it is - the design, the idea, the look, etc. I enjoy a lot when building up this instrument. Hope more people can see you.

I have just finished the hurdy gurdy, it has been a joy to make, and looks wonderful, the quality is exellent and it works great, i did the goble model first to get used to things, that worked out great too, just make sure you wax things good and make sure the parts move when you do them, i ordered another model from a different company but the quality was no where near as good as ugears, and i just found out if you need spare parts you get them totally free including postage which is fantastic on ugears side, i am now on to the vtrain advanced and so far enjoying it

I had never heard of a Hurdy-Gurdy nor UGears when I received this kit as a gift. I was instantly hooked.

The attention to detail is incredible. Not only is the finished piece functional, but there are many parts that exist for the sole purpose of making the Hurdy-Gurdy an exquisite piece of art. The finished piece is absolutely beautiful.

I really appreciate that UGears provided tablatures to help tinkerers like myself learn how to play the model instrument. The tablature is just one example of how UGears goes above and beyond in this kit. I really get the feeling that UGears is not just interested in making a functional instrument, but rather, also making something that looks like it belongs in a museum.

Easy 5 stars.

I had a great time putting the hurdy gurdy together. The hammer provided broke halfway through, and I ran out of wax around then, too.

As for the playing of it, I am impressed with the tone quality, especially after "cottoning" the strings. Would not have expected it to sound as good as it does. Unfortunately the top two notes in particular are WAY out of tune. In watching the videos of the tunes on this website I noticed those to notes are rarely if ever used. I'm hoping I can do some tweaking to improve the pitches.

Overall, a great product as long as you don't expect to make great music with it. Fun and interesting to build, beautiful to look at, and fun to 'fiddle' around with.