Mechanical wooden model
Hurdy-Gurdy musical instrument

The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces a sound resembling one of a bagpipe by a hand-turned wheel rubbing against the strings working similarly to a violin and a fiddle bow.

The history of this instrument begins in the 15th century. One of the earliest forms of the hurdy-gurdy was the organistrum (a portable organ) in Medieval Europe.

After some modifications it became a common instrument among travelling musicians in England and went through its renaissance period in the later 17th-18th centuries as more of the noble class musical instrument for the amusement of the rich.

Those instruments were decorated by craftsmen with inlays and carving and had the built-in hurdy-gurdy mechanism into the guitar or lute body. Some call the Hurdy-Gurdy music "a medieval rock’n’roll", which we find pretty cool. It captured us and we decided to create the Ugears' version of the Hurdy-Gurdy.

Concept of the model

Based on the 15th Century organistrum, Ugears has created an intricately detailed, fully functional version of this medieval instrument. The finished model looks remarkably akin to the original 16th century hurdy gurdy, giving it a wonderfully medieval aesthetic.  This wooden attractive and educational model has a highly detailed exquisite décor of the body crafted in romantic style and turns the assembly and playing process into an exciting game and brings you hours of pleasure and fun.

Engineering Hurdy-Gurdy

The design of the Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy is based on the original prototype, therefore it  includes the body, front and back decks, gears, crank (handle), neck, tuning pegs or hitch-pins, strings and tangent box that altogether form a single beautiful instrument. This self-assembled mechanical musical model is super easy to play, creating sound as the hand-turned wheel rubs against the melody and bourdon strings.

The Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy’s tuning pegs have a gear reduction mechanism for finer sound tuning of the melody and bourdon strings. For a more clear sound you can switch off the bourdon string using a little lever in the keybox. Also we added the gear reduction mechanism into the crank (handle) to increase the number of wheel’s rotations. This allowed us to get a smoother and richer sound and preserve the compact size of the model itself.

6 keys are spring-loaded with rubber bands and little cranks in the keybox to ensure softer and more convenient play. Also the Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy has a special mechanism to adjust the height of both strings (melody and bourdon string) on the bridge and the beautiful planetary gears mechanism inside the body.

The length of the melody and the bourdon string is 250 mm (from bridge to the head’s threshold). The length of the strings between the middle of the wheel to the bridge is 30 mm.

Assembling Hurdy-Gurdy

The Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy comes with everything needed for assembly. All the pieces are precut into the plywood boards and are easily removed for assembly following the detailed instructions provided.  The only non-wood parts, by necessity, are the two strings that rub against the crank powered wheel and the rosin used to wax it.

The assembly of the Hurdy-Gurdy includes the several stages. Firstly, you put the smaller parts together to form the large blocks: the body, wheel, crank, head, tuning pegs, keyboard, melody strings – which will altogether complete the whole model, without glue or special tools.

Estimated assembly time of the Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy is 4-5 hours for beginners and less time for professional builders. Assembles without glue or special tools and  without toothpicks. Number of component parts: 292

Tuning

The model has a melody string for playing melodies and a bourdon string for a background sound. 6 keys correspond to 6 notes that are played by pushing the key while rotating the crank. The released keys provide one more, seventh, note. We recommend to tune the melody string to D note using a free online chromatic (guitar) tuner. The second (bourdon) string is tuned by tuning the peg in unison to the melody string (our recommendation – to the same D note) or in any melodic interval (quart, quint, octave). The construction kit includes pieces of rosin to wax the wheel and improve the sound.

You can adjust the height of both strings (melody and bourdon string) turning the small wheels on the bridge. For a more clear sound you can switch off the bourdon string using a little lever in the keybox.