Appalachian Dulcimer

 

Appalachian Dulcimer

A client brought this to me fresh from her closet.  Apart from the obvious - peg box broken off - some of the side seams had come apart, and the shellac finish was tired.

Since I have an ample supply of spruce sound posts, I used one to form two dowel pegs to reinforce the repair. Measure twice, drill once.  I have no intention of ever reopening this join, so I used construction PVA.

The side seams were straight-foward, using hide glue and clamps.  As for the finish, a light sand followed by a single re-oil using 50:50 boiled linseed and turpentine, and blonde shellac. Two coats, wet sand, one coat, polish and wax.

This is a four-string Dulcimer.  I strung it with light-gauge steel guitar strings - D-B-E-E, and dropped the tuning on the B/E strings to get the traditional D-A-D-D dulcimer tuning.

A couple of the frets were proud, giving some ;local buzz, so I filed those down to give a clear sound through its range.

It is a rare opportunity to work with one of these, so naturally I took the instrument's measure for future builds 👴