Complelty new and a tiny bit lost

[wocket]

Hi All,
I'm a tiny bit lost. I've never tried to make an instriment before and I'm determined to make a Dulcimer. I adore the sound.

I'm a mature aged uni student, studying to be a tech and fine art teacher. This is partly for an assigment to make some sort of musical instriment and mostly because i enjoy a learning challenge.

With a limited grasp of woodworking it's going to be quite a first project.

So this is my into here and my shout out for any hints/tips you can give to an absolute beginner. I've found a couple of "this is how my journey is going" kind of website but precious little in the way of instructions. So if you have any great resources you think I should try and find then I'd love to hear about them. Books, DVD's, online things, anything. I don't have access to any plans or preexisting dulcimers to draw from.

[dholeton]

Wocket
There are many resources for building a mountain dulcimer so I'll provide one book here and I expect other members will provide additional resources. Jean Ritchie's "Dulcimer People" book has instructions for building a mountain dulcimer.

The shape of your dulcimer might be determined by the amount of time you have for this project along with access to (and/or experience with) saws, clamps, wood bending tools, and exact measurement equipment. A box dulcimer requires no bending, a tear drop requires minor bending but can be done without wood-bending press equipment, and an hourglass requires wood-bending equipment.
The fret board will require exact measurement, a perfectly flat piece of wood, and a fret saw.

If your project allows you to use a kit, many kits are available (McSpadden, Folkcraft, Stewart-Macdonald to name a few). I think Folkcraft also provides parts like pre-cut fretboards, sides, and backs. Stew-Mac and Folkcraft also provide a variety of tuners, nut/bridge pieces, fret wire, strings, and tools.
I think Home Depot and Lowes have some thin cut poplar that might be used for dulcimer tops and sides along with other miscellaneous pieces for making a fretboard, head, and tailblock.

Some of the dulcimer festivals also offer dulcimer-building workshops.

I'm sure as others get on line you'll see lots more suggestions roll in to this thread.
Good Luck
Dave

[Jon]

Wocket,
Dave's suggestions are good ones. The first question to be answered is can you use a kit. If so, Folkcraft and Stew-Mac are good choices. The Ritchie book, as well as one by Howard Mitchel (The Mountain Dulcimer -How to Make It and Play It)do describe the process, but in my opinion leave too many choices. American Lutherie #98 has an article by Calkin on building a dulcimer, but it's a bit too complicated. Linings are not needed and it's easiest to attach the fret board to the top before gluing the top to the body. He also uses several power tools.
You're going to need some idea of dimensions before you begin.Folk Craft sells plans for both a teardrop and hourglass shape. L. Allen Smith (Catalog of Pre-revival Appalachian Dulcimers) and Ralph Lee Smith (The Story of the Dulcimer) both have lots of pictures with some key dimensions.Keith Young sells a DVD "How to Make A Mountain Dulcimer". It also uses power tools. Check out any posting on this site under the heading of An Interesting Dulcimer Experiment (Richard Thoughear).
You can make a perfectly acceptable dulcimer using only hand tools although access to power tools would be helpful. Check out the web pages of several dulcimer makers. A guitar-type peg head is probably the easiest. IT can be screwed to the head block and the screw head covered with a pearl dot (as opposed to the more normal joint with the fret board. The fret board design used by Troughhear and Calkin can be achieved with a coping saw, eliminating the need for a router to hollow out the fret board. Although you can use poplar from Lowes, I would suggest buying 1/8 inch wood like cherry or walnut from places like LMI, or Rockler. Nothing wrong with poplar for sound, but I believe you'll be happier with the look of other hardwoods. Tops are typically spruce, redwood, or cedar, but can also be the same wood as the back and sides. For the fret board, you want something that is dimensionally stable-a quarter-sawn hardwood is the best choice. Stay away from tuning pegs and use geared tuners. Stew-Mac has a fret calculator to determine fret spacing and Bear Mountain has a string calculator to determine string size for a given tuning and VSL (vibrating string length). Good luck with your project and you'll find many members on this site who will be happy to provide advice.

[KenH]

Welcome Wocket;

I'm gonna cut right to the chase. The others have given you lots of resources for innumerable details, and the info they've given is great.

But here is an article written by ED member Dave M several years back on how to build a simple box style dulcimer for about $20... might be $25 these days.

http://tinyurl.com/BoxDulcimerArticle

Dave has included everything you need to know to make a simple, but very playable dulcimer from hardware store materials. The 1/4" thin wood needed for a box dulcimer can be obtained from the craft wood section at Home Depot or Lowe's. Or you can go to www.folkcraft.com or several other places to find wood that is even thinner. Most builders use 1/8" thin stock.

[dholeton]

Thanks Ken
I can't believe I've been visiting this site for two or three years and I have never noticed Dave M's Tennessee Box Dulcimer information. I saved it to my favorites since it is concise and the easiest answer to someone wanting to start their first dulcimer building project.
Dave

[wocket]

Wow, all wonderful resources and tips.

I have access to a full workshop as part of my course (Bachelor Secondary Edu, Industrial Technology), including I belive some sort of bending gear. Details are scant right now until week 1 of the course. I want to be ready to go by that stage so I can get right into things.

It's a very short amount of time alloted for this section of the course. However I do know that we will expected to do some "gitar style bending." So I guess I'm creating an hourglass shape. And we have to do everything from scratch, so no kits allowed.

It will be a challenge all right.

I'm self teaching as unfortunatly the teaching so far seems to have been very hands off, minimal instruction. I've learnt many of my future tech teacher skills from the net and practicing on my own. I guess it has lead to deeper learning but it has also left big gaps in my knowledge.

As for woods I'm in Australia and I think that I'd like to use something local, such as hoop pine, red cedar etc. I'm snuffling around the place trying to source pretty things.

The spacing of the frets, how to attach the tuning pins and the bit down the end that the strings attach too are worrying me as I haven't found any info on them yet. i'll certainly be trying to find all the books and articles mentioned.

My very first build for the whole project is to make myself 40 or so spool clamps.

[wocket]

Oh! and I should mention that here there is no Home Depo and Lowes is a mens clothing store! I wonder how they would react to me asking to see their wood?

[mrchips]

If there's not a REAL lumberyard around you could order wood from Folkcraft.com, Rockler or Woodcraft. These places sell small chunks of real nice wood in all sorts of thicknesses. The cost per board foot is way out of sight but it will still most likely be cheaper than having to buy a 6 or 8 foot board at a lumberyard. Its probably the best way to go for one or 2 mds.

You have to consider what sort of tools you have at your disposal too. Its a bear to carve out a piece of 1/8 thick wood out of a 3/4 thick board with nothing more than a hand saw and a belt sander.

[KenH]

Being in Oz, trying to order anything from The States is going to be cost prohibitive!!!!!

Silk Oak is a great dulcimer wood for tops/backs/sides; I've built a few instruments from it.

Bending sides of Silk Oak can be done with a sawn jig to bend and clamp to, and just a hot water soak of the 6mm thick side pieces. Other jig styles will also work.

The article I listed above gives you the spacing for the frets at three different "scale lengths" (we say VSL in the dulcimer world).

Tuning machines are attached with small screws. Autoharp type tuning pines are a sub-sized hole with the self-threading pins driven in before turning. The string pins on the other end are basically small headless nails.

[rtroughear]

Wocket
Where are you in Australia? If you are in the vicinity maybe we can meet.

Richard T

[wocket]

Hi Richard, I'm in Brissy. I'd love to meet up with you or anyone else who's done this before.

I'm having trouble sourcing the reccomended books (above) and not sure where to get hoop pine.

Gah, it's all a bit frustrating. Still, the quest continues.

[rtroughear]

Wocket
I'm on the south coast of NSW so face to face is out.

But it's not as difficult as you might think. There is no absolute "correct" way to do anything in the building process - whatever works for you, with the tools you have. About the only materials that will not be simply available might be the fret wire (any size will do for a first build). I can send you a couple of sticks for the first time. If you make subsequent dulcimers you can get more from Stewart MacDonald (http://www.stewmac.com). They deliver to Australia in about a week from the USA - no customs duty. Guitar machine tuners can be bought at music stores - low cost ones are OK, but Grover or Gotohs are better.

I've use Australian Red Cedar for backs and sides and it's good. Hoop Pine is OK for a top (the top wood hardly affects the tone of the sound in my opinion - pick it for looks). You can find excellent Western Red Cedar in hardware stores that stock wall panelling, and is a very good top wood - looks nice, easy to work (mind the dust though). Close, straight grain is what you want, quarter sawn. Grain lines about 1mm apart looks good. Back and top blanks will need to be about 1 metre long by about 10cm or wider. Joined down the middle for the full width. Don't worry too much about book matching the two sides of the top and back, it's done for looks and because guitar makers can't usually get suitable width single pieces. Bookmatching won't affect the sound one way or the other. So get your 100cm x 10cm blanks; two for the back, two (of the same wood) for the sides, and two for the top. For your first build you might avoid highly figured wood or curly grain - it can be difficult to plane and work. Go for colour for the back and sides and straight grain for the top. Take the blanks to someone who has a thickness planer, or your college may have one. Get the blanks thickness down to 3mm (the machine operator probably won't want to go below that). 3mm is fine for tops, backs and sides. Make the sides about 50mm high. From each side blank cut off two strips along one edge to use as internal side linings, if you choose to do linings. If you choose to do internal bracing, make them about 8mm square. It's not critical for the first build (nothing is). Use yellow PVA glue. Decide if you want to leave an over hanging (fiddle) edge for tops and back or flush. If you want a fiddle edge then spool clamps make it difficult to clean up the glue squeeze out. If you want to put protective bindings on the sides at the top and bottom, you will need to put internal linings.

A fretboard height of 20mm to 25mm above the top plate is OK, and 30mm to 35mm wide. Medium weight wood is a good start; not so soft it will wear out with playing, but dead straight (a 0.5mm to 1mm "dish" is OK). Arrange the nut to bridge distance so that the bridge sits, say, 30mm to 40mm from the end of the instrument. Plan where the last fret will be prior to cutting out the strum hollow or arches. If you use an arched fretboard I think it's wise to place a cross brace under each fretboard foot. Hollow or arched fretboards don't have different characteristic "sounds" and one isn't necessarily stronger or more stable than the other.

I don't think much of single middle strings, so I only make six string dulcimers. It's no more difficult and hardly more expensive (two machine tuners).

That's my two cents. There will be lots of people out there who have different opinions on everything I've said, and they're right too. Pick out the bits you like and do that - it will turn out OK.

Richard T