1920s Bohm Type 1C Waldzither

Bohm (in Germany) was, basically, the leading maker of waldzithers in the '20s as far as I know. These instruments are related to the English guitar (read: cittern) of the Renaissance/post-Renaissance era. Said English guitars were often tuned to an open C tuning (CEGCEG low to high in a mandola/viola range) and this same tuning and instrument layout ("clock key" tuners on a flatback mandolin body shape) morphed into this Germanic form somewhere along the line.

It lost a course of strings and the low "C" became a single string drone/bass note while the GCEG portion of the tuning became the "playing" strings. This is more or less, because you can obviously play it how you like. This tuning -- CGCEG -- is like 5-string banjo with a capo on the 5th fret but with a low drone note. So, yes, strummy folk-tunes, metal-fingerpicked brilliance, or mandolin-style-flatpicked stuff is what these instruments were built to do.

A lot of modern (read: US-based) players make the mistake of trying to string them as "mandola-plus-a-low-G" instruments and I think they lose a lot of their charm and sparkle in that tuning. It's much more useful for a mandolinist wanting to get an "octave mandolin" vibe going, but the instrument's voice really suits the extra sustain and jangle of an open tuning, I think.

Anyhow, a local customer brought this in and it was actually in decent shape for its age. It needed a fret level/dress, crack repairs, a new compensated bridge (I used a neat '20s bridge base plus a new bone saddle), setup, and stringing, though... and I threw in side dots as well...

Post-work it plays beautifully and -- as you can hear in the video -- it sounds lovely. It's got chime! It's got sparkle! I like it.

The strings are gauged 36w, 22w/22w, 16/16, 12/12, 9/9 low to high. I used ball-end singles and removed the ball ends from them to make loop ends (you can crush the ball-ends with end-nippers... or just buy loop-end singles). These loop-ends go to the tailpiece. I then stretched the string (with the bridge off) as tight as I could up to the hitch/hook at the tuner. Wrap it around in a loop... twist the end back around the string once or twice... then pass the string through the loop and pull it towards the tailpiece.

This should lock it "well-enough" but I go further, these days, and solder my loops on either end after I fit them to the instrument because I find it helps keep the ends from unwinding and that's great because it's a righteous pain in the rear to string one of these. A 5-minute restring job on a 12-string guitar becomes a half-hour or 45-minute job quite easily with these tuners.