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.