Musician and Appalachian Mountain Dulcimer Maker
This information applies to dulcimers as well as any wooden stringed instrument.
Wood, no matter how well seasoned, will continue to expand and contract with changes in humidity.
One of the primary causes of damage to stringed instruments is dehydration. An instrument can dry out in a remarkably short period of time. As the wood becomes dry [...]
I envy my friends my woodworker friends who make things other than musical instruments. Even the pickiest of them often come home from a sawmill with beautiful, usable wood. For stringed instruments the choices quickly narrow down. For most parts of a dulcimer I will only use quarter sawn wood.
I generally have a hard [...]
Illustrations from “Sound” by John Tyndall (1915) via Google Books.
More fun facts to know and tell provided by Google Books.
The Tree Book: A Popular Guide To A Knowledge Of The Trees Of North America by Julia Ellen Rogers (1905)