A slab zither

A zither is a stringed instrument, with the strings stretched across the sound chamber or soundboard.
Unlike, say, a guitar, it doesn’t have a neck to extend the strings beyond the sound chamber.
That’s it. Within that description it can look like anything.
For instance, the Chinese (and Japanese and other Asian nations) have traditionally used long zithers, with anything from five strings to more than 30. They are usually unfretted, with movable bridges.
I’ve made a couple of long zithers based on the Chinese “qin”.
The European zither is more commonly rectangular with multiple strings - often 20 or more.
The nearest I’ve made to the European style zither is what I call the slab zither. It’s made from a slab of camphor laurel, which was given to me by a very generous man. Thanks Peter.

I use mainly Australian native timbers, but camphor laurel is an introduced species. Its very common in parts of New South Wales and Queensland. In fact its been declared a noxious weed in some places.
In dairy farm regions it’s a real pest, because if cows eat the foliage their milk tastes of camphor!
But the timber is good to work - medium hardness, interesting grain patterns, planes and sands OK.
This particular slab (which means I don’t know if it’s all like this) seemed to be affected by some dark staining - perhaps fungal attack. As often as I sanded/planed it out, it appeared again next day.
I ultimately decided to lightly stain the main body to conceal the marks. In the photos, the natural colour of the timber is the sound chamber cover; the darker body is due to the stain.
This zither has 17 bronze strings, from .012” to .025”.