I started making dulcimers on my parents’ kitchen table when I was 17 . When I left home I worked out of a few different shops, houses and apartments. Sometimes where I lived and worked were the same place and occasionally the same room. I was young and the world was mine. I stopped making dulcimers when I [...]
Tag Archive 'Dulcimer'
Dulcimerville is going to be wonderful! Though it is only the first year of the festival it is being presented by Lois Hornbostel and Lois knows what she is doing! Lois has been organizing well-known, fun and successful dulcimer gatherings for almost 25 years. I am usually somewhat frantic the day before a road trip. [...]
Since I make dulcimers primarily using hand tools almost everything takes place on the bench. The rest of my small shop contains mostly tools and wood that get used on the bench or stuff that is drying or curing between visits to the bench. Here are a bunch of pictures I took during the past few months of various [...]
I am often asked how long it takes me to make a dulcimer. The answer is that I don’t really know. Someday I will figure it out. I do know that I am not making very much per hour! Here are some of the things that require my time before making a dulcimer. Design – [...]
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 [...]
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. – Mevlana Jellaludin Rumi
Lutherie requires precision work with a material that prefers to bend and sway with the weather! I have learned that it is better to accommodate the will of the wood then to force it to meet my demands. I have tried both approaches and have learned that the will of the wood always wins! Working [...]
Balancing Instrument Making and Instrument Playing
Posted in Dulcimer, Hammered Dulcimer, Lutherie, Music on Jul 31st, 2009
I find instrument making and playing to be intimately linked together. I enjoy doing both equally. Sometimes I lean more one way than the other for a while but the focus always swings back and forth and more or less balances itself out. I also find myself focused on different instruments as well and the [...]
Perhaps a better title for this post would be “I Do Better Work When Tools Are Sharp!” The other day I found myself enjoying working at the bench less that I usually do. I was having a hard time clamping a dulcimer firmly enough to the bench so that I could plane the fingerboard flat. [...]
Sandpaper is an amazing and versatile tool. With sandpaper I can round edges, sculpt smooth, curved surfaces and fix the occaisional “oops” left behind by an edge tool. Sandpaper also is great when prepping for finishing. It has set the modern standard of what people expect a surface to look like, for better or for [...]
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- I'm about to put binding on a dulcimer and will start making the peghead while the glue dries. Lutherie multitasking! 1 day ago
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- Just got back from a trip to the sawmill. I came home with some beautiful quartersawn cherry and walnut. 3 days ago
- I have a pile of odd dulcimer tops, sides and backs left over from resawing. None match the others. I'll make a patchwork dulcimer someday! 4 days ago
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