The Lyre is finished!

Guess what we've been playing?  Yes, the Lyre!  Woo hoo!  It rings out beautifully (when it is in tune) and is nice to play.  It will take a while to settle and stay in tune so lots of fiddling ahead, but for now we are super pleased!

Putting it together brought up some teething problems, like zither pins with holes so sharp they cut the nylagut strings and therefore needing to be sanded down.  The guitar string we used for the tail piece started slipping too so that needed a little jury rigging before we put it back together again for another try.
   

Cyrano felt that he had to be involved in all stages!

Then it was all together!  Amazing!  What a great feeling!  Time to tune it, but would it tune up ok?  It was the big test! With the help of an online chromatic tuner to guide me, it did indeed come into tune!

Then we could both have a play and begin to get a feel for it.

Andyroo, you are the best. Gorgeous as well as talented. That is some birthday present. Thank you!  

Now I just need to learn how to play it.  We built it left-handed for me, and I play guitar right-handed, so will take a little longer than it might to learn it, but I never really have got my crappy right hand picking well so this will hopefully be better in the long run.

This Lyre is based on the Morning Thorpe pattern created by Michael J King.

And to hear someone who can already actually play one, go watch this video:

I mean, skillz! And playing in a tree with the wind blowing.  How bardically dramatic can you get?  :)