Doug Berch

Many instruments with flat tops and backs actually have some slight arching built into them. The arching ads stiffness and strength to the thin top and back.
On guitars the soundboard must not only create the sound of the instrument but it also must resist the tension of six strings. Traditional dulcimer designs usually employ the [...]

This morning I posted about some wood I was going to resaw. Some of the wood shown in today’s earlier post has been resawn as well as a few other boards.
Some of the boards needed to be flattened before they could be resawn. For the ones with a lot of twist I prefer using a [...]

When I shop for wood I never know what I’ll come home with. Usually I plan on getting something specific but often I find that what I want isn’t available. Sometimes I’m lucky and come home with something unexpected and wonderful.
That is how I came to acquire this Curly Sapele or Mahogany. I’m not quite [...]

The dulcimer album is almost done and the hammered dulcimer album is in the home stretch. Mastering should begin in a few weeks.
I’ve been recording with Glenn Brown at Glenn Brown Productions in East Lansing. The sound is wonderful, true audiophile quality.

Here’s where I’m starting off this morning. Today I’ll start working on the pegheads.

Just thought I’d put up a few pictures of #81 as it moves through a few stages of construction.
This sides and back are from a very nice piece of curly Walnut and the top is a very stiff piece of Sitka Spruce with a fair amount of bear claw figure. Unfortunately my lack of skill [...]

Somehow I ended up with mp3s of an album of Khmer dance music, probably a download I found somewhere online. This is amazing, high spirited music.
The instrumentation features some type of hammered dulcimer, zither, bowed instruments and percussion.
I did a web search recently to learn more about this music and learned that the recordings [...]

It has been a busy day in the shop; sawdust is everywhere but mostly on me! After several experimental prototypes I have begun making the dulcimers that will soon be available for sale.
I brought one of the prototypes into the studio and it recorded beautifully!
Each dulcimer will be somewhat unique but for the time [...]

Most photographs of craftsman’s benches in woodworking magazines look like they were staged. There is usually a plane or chisel, a discrete shaving or two, a project in a recognizable stage of construction and a level of cleanliness adequate for performing surgery.
I think my bench looks more like what most woodworkers and luthiers typically [...]

The new album is coming along. I’ve upped a rough mix of my arrangement of a traditional North American tune called “Texas” to the “Listen” page. It features dulcimer, harmonium, Jew’s harp, tinwhistle and ankle bells. I hope you enjoy it.
As long as I’m here I may as well link to the tune directly:
Texas