Until I got into fondling the leather ferret, my lagerphone was my only instrument. My playing style was rather vigorous and the one I made was along the style of the one linked to above but more substantial. I used a hoe handle for the upright and cut a step into the 'top' to seat a slightly larger plate that was bolted to the upright. striking the back of the plate gave variation to the timbre.

I found that my playing style caused the hole in the bottle tops to tear quite quickly so I put a 1/2" steel washer between the tops and the screw head; nails never lasted any distance for me. Even so, I'd have to replace at least half the tops after three evenings' dances. Having long exhausted my supply of crown seals with cork inserts and wasted a lot of time dealing with plastic inserts (they really do deaden the tone) I got onto the manufacturer of crown seals in Victoria and they gave me a box of 1000 that they took off the line before the inserts were inserted. Great! For those in areas where such trickery is unavailable I suggest collecting the little caps that come in the tops of champagne corks; they prevent the wire from cutting into the cork. Of course, any instrument using them must be called a champerphone and not a lagerphone.

I also carried a square of carpet to prevent damage to the flooring and, ultimately, I even had to make a small rectangle of flooring to properly isolate my efforts from mic stands. My preference for bows was an axe handle. When I played with Flowers and Frolics I broke my bow and had to find, quickly, some timber to make another; English timber places had a different understanding of 'hardwood' than Australian ones, I found.

If I felt myself to be able to give advice on playing lagerphone, I'd probably limit myself to suggesting that you treat each tune as an individual item and "play" it as such.

All the best!

Cheers, Rowan