1 ADYTUM TRIBUNE
Homemade Erhu
Building a musical instrument because I'm #boredashell
Fri Jul 24 2026
It's become tradition for me at this point to build something weird every summer. Last year, it was a homemade motorbike, and this year, it's an erhu (二胡), a classical Chinese bowed string instrument.
The idea of building an erhu kind of just popped into my head one day, with the realization that they were pretty simple as far as instruments go. After a bit of searching I came across this Tumblr post by incredible-fishes, detailing how to do exactly that. It looked easy and cheap enough, and I already had spare strings and a suitable container, so I went to Home Depot a few days later to get the rest of the parts I needed.
Since moving to the Boston area this summer to go back to school, my quality of life has improved so much, not the least because it's so much safer and easier here to bike and take transit everywhere than Providence, and because there are so many more stores to get things at. Moving here has also finally severed me from my family, who I ran away from after they reacted really badly to me coming out as trans. They don't know my address anymore. No more unannounced visits; no more coming into my apartment uninvited, or outing me to my employer.
Unfortunately, this has also meant I no longer have a direct connection to my home culture. I have complicated feelings towards my Chinese upbringing, because it's been so toxic and queerphobic, but I still don't want to lose that part of myself. #neverturningwhite. Building an erhu, then, has also felt like a way to claim my cultural identity for myself. I don't need my toxic parents to be true to my heritage.
A spread of all the materials I used, totalling about 15 dollars.
Step one: I began with a 1 1/4 inch and a 0.5 inch wooden dowel, an empty protein powder container, and some spare guitar strings. The dowels were from Home Depot and cost 15 dollars total. I cut the thicker dowel, which will be used for the neck, to 32 inches, and the thinner dowel, for the pegs, to two 5 inch sections.
Step two: I cut two holes in the protein container and slid it on the neck dowel.
The holes were pill shaped, and I notched the neck dowel where I wanted it to intersect with the holes, allowing the container to latch onto the dowel and not rotate. I left an inch from the bottom of the dowel, and secured everything with hot glue.
Step three: I drilled two parallel holes near the top of the neck dowel.
The first hole was 5 inches from the top, and the second was 3 inches from the first.
ADYTUM TRIBUNE 2
I tried my best to make them parallel, but that didn't quite work out.
Step four: I drilled holes in the pegs for the strings and inserted them.
The holes were just a little too small, so I ended up sanding them until the pegs fit just right. If I had more time and resources, I would have carved handles for the pegs so they could tune easier, but this setup is still workable.
Step five: I drilled a couple of small screws into the base to hold the strings.
The screws were close enough to hold the little nubs at the base of the guitar strings, but not too close that it would be difficult to string them. It was weirdly difficult to find screws small enough for this job, though maybe that was just because of where I was working. I should mention at this point that I made this erhu in the basement workshop of pika, an MIT student co-op.
Step six: I made a bridge and string rest.
The bridge was just a section from the same dowel that the tuning pegs came from, with two notches sawed for the strings. I also taped on a chunk of scrap wood to distribute the force of the strings pressing into the body.
Step seven: I strung the strings.
Erhus are typically tuned to D4 on the inner (facing you) string and A4 on the outer string, though I couldn't tune the strings that high and settled for D3 and A3; I don't know if the pegs or strings could survive being tuned that high in any case.
Step eight: I tried to make a bow.
This actually took a lot longer than the erhu itself. I ordered the cheapest horse hair I could find ($8) and tried building a bow out of the thin dowel, but I couldn't make the tension last or get it even. I ended up just ordering the cheapest bow I could find ($25). Also, don't forget, you need rosin ($~7) to play a bowed instrument!
The bow I ended up getting:
So I have a working erhu now! It's a really interesting experience to play, because there are no frets nor even a fretboard. It takes lots of guesswork to get the notes right. However, playing this gives me such a visceral sense of connection to my heritage, like all my ancestors are giving me a fist bump at the same time.
Anyways, here's a video of me playing this thing kind of terribly. Thanks for reading!