Dulcimer Building

Mold and Peghead

First I had to decide on a shape. Teardrop, hourglass or ellipsoid. After reading the archive articles regarding shape and how it affected the tone I decided on a simple ellipse, similar to the very early designs from our forefathers. This also helped greatly in the bending of the sides department.

This shows the mold I made out of 3/4" fir plywood. It is only 1 1/2" deep but that was OK. for my method of building. The little pegs are very handy for the quick alignment of the back and top whenever time is important during the gluing operations.

This shows the making of the peghead. I used some birdseye maple 1/16" x 3/4" in between the three fingers of walnut to give me a little contrast and also to hide or cover up the five screws which I put laterlly across the fingers because I wasn't confident that the glue would be enough to hold them and the tension of the strings. I also had to be careful where I put them because the holes for the tuners didn't leave me much room for error.

Here I am bookmatching the 3 1/16" x 1/16" x 29 1/2" pieces for the back. The Donegal luck was with me on the bookmatch pattern.

Here the sides (which ended up at 5/64") are clamped to the mold to dry. I put the sides in the bathtub for a day and made a wee bracket to hold a hair dryer to the toilet bowl seat.

I had to slip the pins out of the hinges and take the door off the bathroom as I was down to my underwear after the first side because of the heat in there.

This is gluing the sides to the heel. The tapered pieces I cut off the heel, to match the curve of the sides, I used under the toes of the clamp to keep everything square.

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