Yes, each tangent can be rotated to tune it. I play it so rarely that I don't usually bother. It has been said that you spend 90% of your time tuning the Hurdy-Gurdy, and 10% of your time playing it out of tune
The open string sounds fine and this looks so skillfully crafted therefore I am completely sure that it's just a matter of experience in gurdy gurdy tuning and maintenance. Good Job👍🏻
Hurdy-gurdy guitars are not known for carrying a quality sound, but we are better known for being easy to play, loud, and relatively inexpensive to build. A hurdy-gurdy guitar with a pick up, would probably have a much bolder quality sound. This video was incredible, I appreciate the amount of detail you put into this, and you’re very concise explanation of the materials used. A note to people who are generally ignorant of the subject, would be that using a building plan for an ancient instrument like this, is not going to expect the same quality sound as your brand new electric hollow body Gibson standard Les Paul.
Couple of things: You should think about trimming the contact edge of the wheel in something like maple stripping to get better contact with the strings. The plywood edge will cause problems with how the strings vibrate, and thus how they sound. You may have to remove the wheel and take it back to the lathe to remove some material to make room for the maple stripping, but it will be worth it nonetheless. Also, the F-holes that you cut into the sound board are massive and are probably not helping the sound at all. If you look at most gurdys they either have really tiny F-holes, or none at all. Unfortunately, unless you want to disassemble the thing and make an entirely new soundboard, there's not a lot you can do about it. Try temporarily covering the holes, perhaps with some scrap soundboard material, just to hear the difference in sound. Just some thoughts. Great job on your build!!
Wow, this is amazing. I just started myself dabbling with making my own instruments and I have always loved the sound of the Hurdy gurdy. May have to try ths myself
Actually, re-reading the comment, the bit about the bridge sitting on a brace is fine and the way it should be. The big error is using the same brace to support the front wheel bearing. Maybe I didn't make that clear earlier.
