Hurdy Gurdy, Man -- Day One

I don't consider myself a craftsman, by any stretch of the imagination. I'm handy around the house, I guess. I can fix things, hang picture frames, mount towel racks, all that fun stuff. And I can keep the various instruments I have in working order, occasionally re-soldering a connection or tightening a loose fitting. But I use experts for things like electrical work, plumbing, and truss rod adjustment.

The only instruments I've built are really just toys -- a shoe-box sized koto made from a kit and a fretless banjo made from a cardboard mailing tube. But I'm home a lot more now, with my new freelance occupation, so I decided I'd take on a more sophisticated kit instrument. I perused Musikits.com, and, inspired by a French-Canadian band I saw at a local festival, settled on the Hurdy Gurdy: obscure, complexly mechanical yet devilishly simple...I ordered the kit, and the photo above is how it arrived.

I think this is a good time to say I've never heard the Donovan song "Hurdy Gurdy Man," but it's been sung to me several times since I announced this project to my friends.

So, first step was to take inventory of the parts. In classic, IKEA-esque fashion, it was missing the brass crank, so I wrote the company. Let's see how long it takes to get a replacement. Everything else -- dozens and dozens of bits of wood, metal, cotton, felt, plastic, rosin, and gut -- were all present.

Not wasting any time, I took on the first step and glued the sides to the tail-piece. This should have been easy, except I spent 45 minutes cleaning out my old bottle of woodglue, before realizing it wasn't usable. Again, I'm no expert. So I went to the hardware store and bought glue and two clamps. The woman looked at me and said "Doin' some clampin', eh?" What answer is there for that question?

Then I tackled the step I feared the most -- I cut the wheel-hole in the soundboard. I hate jigsaws, and have never been good with them. This hole is a little misshapen, but will fortunately be masked by a wheel-hole cover. When I was a kid, working in a warehouse, I broke a jigsaw blade and it was terrifying -- the metal shot out across the room. Safely safety goggled, I fired up my never-used Riobi saw and, well, the blade broke. This time it was less terrifying -- just a little crack and a pile of fragments. So I plugged in my wife's dad's old jigsaw, a metal behemoth that pre-dates most modern safety measures. It cut a little jagged, but I sanded it clean and I seem to have done okay. Not perfect. But hey, that's life...