Wiener Kontra-Ukulele (Viennese Harp Ukulele)

grenosi

grenosi

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Hello!

I'd like to introduce to you the first Wiener Kontra-Ukulele. It's nearly finished. I'm only waiting on the tuners for the bass-strings.
Here is one picture:

GRENOSIWienerKontraukulele003_zpscd9a839b.jpg


I wil show more pictures, when the bass strings are attached.

This Ukulele is inspired by a guitar from Ludwig Reisinger, a renowned Austrian instrument maker in the first half of the 20th century.
I hope you like it.

Greetings from Vienna,
Gregor
 
I absolutely love it, and I've been thinking along those lines for a next instrument for myself, though I was more likely to go "Dyer-style" with the hollow arm.
 
I was looking at some Russian guitars the other day that had similar lines and thinking it would be a great project to try out on a baritone scale uke. I'm looking forward to more pictures of yours Gregor.
 
Rick - I have a set of plans for a dyer style tenor if you want them. PM me. aNueNue did a limited production run. I also have 4 for sale....
Grenosi - perfect :)
 
Hello!
Thank you very much for your nice comments.
I will post more pictures as soon as possible.
Since I am from Vienna I am not very interested in the dyer style ukuleles. We have this Kontra-guitar building tradition here starting with Johann Georg Stauffer (C.F. Martin was an apprentice in his workshop), continued and improved by Johann Gottfried Scherzer.
I have a very beautiful Kontra-Gitarre with 9 extra bass-strings made by Ludwig Reisinger in my workshop, which needs to be repaired because the top has quite a lot of cracks. So I took this guitar as an inspiration for my project.

Greetings from Vienna,
Gregor
 
Gregor, have you run across any of the Zimmerman knock-offs of the Schertzer guitars? Luthier Roy McAlister had an 11 string kontra-gitarre...with a Russian-style 7 string playing neck and 4 harp strings. Zimmerman had two fairly large factories, one in Austria, the other in Russia. And we thought copies were a new innovation... Interesting histories there...
 
Zimmerman was a big distributor of all things musical, and apparently sub-contracted out instrument building to a number of makers. Zimmerman had offices and I assume warehouses in both what we now think of as Germany (Leipzig) and in Russia (St. Petersburg).

The 11 string harp guitar I saw had laminated sides...with the Brazilian rosewood outer veneer grain running up and down between top and back! Weird! It was a really cool guitar.

I am interested in the Austrian guitar thing, and it's closely related to the zither music I love. I'm a major fan of Anton Karas and his "3rd Man" movie score.
 
What will be the tuning for the two necks?
 
The tuning of the four bass-strings is C-D-E-F and the other strings are tuned G-C-E-A.
 
With "modern" harp guitars, it's not uncommon to use Irish harp sharping levers to enable quick 1/2 step up tuning changes.
 
Wow, sounds fantastic. It really rings.
 
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