Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy Model

Ugears Hurdy Gurdy: the world's first mechanical musical model for self-assembly and play.

This beautiful mechanism is made entirely of wooden materials. Inspired by the art of medieval masters, enriched by smart engineering of XXI century and created by Ugears engineers' collective imagination. Richly detailed with an eye toward romance and artistry, our version of this indelible symbol of medieval life and adventure captures the imagination of all who see and play it. The Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy is the fully fledged musical instrument. Everybody can play it: just turn a crank with one hand putting the rhythm into the music and push the keys with the other. Unique combination of good taste, wood and mechanics. Awesome gift and smart hobby idea for your beloved.


Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy has a unique design and a lot of technical elements and details that turns the assembly and playing process into exciting game and brings you hours of pleasure and fun.
Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy Construction

The Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy’s tuning pegs have gear reduction mechanism for finer sound tuning of the melody and bourdon strings. For more clear sound you can switch off the bourdon string with the help of a little lever arm in the keybox. Also we introduced the gear reduction mechanism into the crank (handle) to increase the number of wheel’s revolutions. That’s allowed us to get more smooth and rich sound and preserve a compact size of the model itself. We spring-loaded all 6 keys are with the help of rubber bands and little cranks in the keybox for a quieter and more convenient play. Also Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy has a mechanism to adjust the height of both strings (melody and bourdon string) on the bridge and 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.
The Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy is equipped with everything needed for assembly. The quality of the parts is very high – a laser method with precision 0.01mm is used for cutting items from a plywood board. All details are already cut out and can be easily removed from the board. All steps of the assembly are described in very detailed step-by-step color instructions. The Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy assembles easily and without the need for glue, toothpicks or special tools thanks to our patented plywood joints. The assembly of the Hurdy-Gurdy includes the several stages. Firstly, you put the smaller parts together to form the large blocks: the body, decks, wheel, crank, head, tuning pegs, keyboard, melody strings – which will altogether complete the whole model, without glue or special tools. Just build it together with your own hands and feel yourself like Stradivari and popular Hurdy-Gurdy star.




Tuning and playing Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy
Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy is a mechanical musical instrument. To play it – just turn a crank with one hand and push the keys with the other. You’ll find the tablature of the tunes from the Hurdy-Gurdy Campaign in the assembly instructions for the model. This will help you to get the rhythm of playing.
The model has 6 keys to play 6 notes turning the big crank (handle) with one hand and pressing the melody string with relevant keys with the other. To play the seventh note – just turn the crank with wheel without pushing any keys. You can tune the second string (bourdon string) with the help of the respective tuning peg in unison to the melody string or in any melodic interval (quart, quint, octave).
Ugears Hurdy-Gurdy brings the unforgettable time of working together on things that are popular among people of any age. Just put it together have a dancing party with your beloved or friends playing solo, a duet, trio quartet the melodies you love (folk, modern, etc).



About Hurdy-Gurdy
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 started 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 parties which was decorated by craftsmen with inlays and carving and had the built-in hurdy-gurdy mechanism into the guitar or lute body. There is a cool interpretation of Hurdy-Gurdy: a medieval rock’n’roll.

#ugears #ugearsmodels #mechanicalmodels

[RockStarOscarStern]

The Hurdy Gurdy is (broadly speaking) a Strung Bagpipe where instead of Blowing it, you crank it. The crank turns a wheel which spins to Bow the strings like a Violin (or Nyckelharpa) Bow, the Keys press on the strings, changing their pitch.

[SaltySeaCat]

I've just started to assemble this kit and I love it. When I first glanced at these kits in a shop I missed how mechanical they really were and assumed that no hurdy gurdy built via a model kit could actually be played in any capacity whatsoever. So when I found out it could, I bought this one for me and a train for my partner.
And to all you negative nancies complaining about how this (AUD) $120 model kit doesn't sound as nice as a $1000 - $5000 "real" Hurdy Gurdy... well there's your answer. Go buy a musical instrument entirely build by instrument builders, and leave this beautiful model kit alone <3
PS, my partner is not disappointed that he can't ride his train up to the CBD. He understands that's really not the point if it.

[milododds]

I have been considering getting this kit, however I would make a small modification by adding felt around the strings which is how some of the custom built hurdy gurdys work. This could improve the sound quality, it is a very cool looking kit and I love how some people have decorated them. I have also seen one guy who made lots of customizations to the mechanics. It's about how to improve the air chamber and how the strings are played. I'm curious to how someone who repairs instruments could modify the kit in various ways to take it to the next-level, not to take anything away from the kit but it's the little tweaks that can make a real difference.

[luvshak]

This is exciting, however, would it be possible to show a video of it actually being played by itself so we can hear how it sounds? It's hard to determine from this video whether the sound we are hearing is coming from the Ugears Hurdy Gurdy, or the gentleman playing the traditional hurdy gurdy, as there is no correlation between what the Ugears players are doing with the audio. Thanks.

[СофіяКиївська-ьш]

Чудовий подарунок! Відправила хлопчику на 56-й день народження у Францію ;) Приємно, що ми маємо таких виробників в Україні

[devonmercurio]

It's a good thing everyone who will see this video already knows what hurdy gurdies sound like.

[ZenPsyko]

Imagine all the Eluveitie fans that would buy this.

[Trent-trnx]

Why don't you actually show the instrument being played? This video told me nothing.

[jaderozner]

can you turn it into an electro-acoustic by adding a pick up?

[MattGreerMusic]

Why is the music piano, bagpipes, guitars, everything except the damn instrument being shown?!

[jabberwocky]

hey, if I back this project. will it include a booklet of notes.

I'm quite worried that it's keys are different from the bigger hurdy gurdys

[SMGJohn]

These look much nicer than they sound LOL

[ТлазолтБезликий]

А есть " гудок" " тальхабра" и " гучжен"?

[Maski]

Uh yeah that’s great and all but why didn’t you put a warning to wax all the gears because now the handle on my hurdy gurdy won’t move

[Ром-щж]

Я русский из России 🇷🇺 мне сложно понять такой сложный музыкальный инструмент поэтому мне нравится балалайка и лучший исполнитель балалаечник Шариков Полиграф Полиграфович. А ещё мне нравится водка и у меня есть ручной медведь.

[lilianalohachova]

Гордость Украины.Хочу мужу на новый год.И доблю отзыв обязательно.

[poyoAesthetic]

This is the most unfitting add in the world lol.

[davetomlinson]

It sounds like utter shite. It looks great but it barely makes a sound. The sound of the cogs turning is louder than the string ! Major design flaw