After watching that clip I now know why I started playing dulcimer. Its a chick magnet !
Wayne, I will be attending the Pocono Dulcimer Festival in Stroudsburg in January. It will not only be my first dulcimer festival but my first time with other players. I look forward to meeting you there as I have enjoyed your posts for the last 9 months that I have been a member.
Bill
I started playing Dulcimer in March. I wasn't sure I was going to stick with it so I did not want to spend a lot of money. I purchased a fully assembled Backyard Cardboard Dulcimer for about $65.00. I still play it. I keep it tuned DAA and keep my newly purchased wooden dulcimer tuned DAd. Which Dulcimer I play depends on the song. I eventually plan on replacing the cardboard soundbox with a wooden box but have not gotten around to it yet. I had a great experience with my cardboard dulcimer and would recommend the same to anyone starting out. 
I hope this helps.
I plan to file and sand the bridge and nut down to an acceptable height. That is , as soon as I get up the courage to start. 
I am not very experienced in these matters.
When I had the temporary bridge in I was able to play it and it sounded nice. The higher bridge really distorts the sound. Makes it very metallic sounding, not to mention out of tune. With the temporary bridge the sound was much warmer.
Since the fret board is only one inch wide and the middle and bass strings are set very close together, I plan on saving this Dulcimer for noter/drone playing. I think it was meant to be played that way. Can't wait to start.
Maybe I will have to play songs with just the low notes
Thanks but there has been another setback. When I moved the bridge back for the VSL to be 27 inches, tuned it up and it held a normal scale, I was using a temporary lower bridge. When I put the original bridge back, even at 27 inches I was getting a distorted scale. I think the string action definitely has to be lowered. I am going to experiment some more with the temporary bridge before filing down the original bridge but I think that is what I am going to have to do.
It is certainly possible I am misreading or even misusing my tuner. I have only been at this three months and what I have learned has come mostly from experimentation and reading this website. I did however repeat it several times and got the same results. I am going to listen to the instrument some more rather than focus on what the tuner says and see where I am at. Thanks for your help it is much appreciated.
Thanks for your replies. I am not only new to dulcimers but new to music. I think I got this. My other dulcimer which was made in the past year I assume has equal temperament tuning. When an open string is tuned to A it follows Strumelia's fret chart as you move up the frets. I tried to apply that to my restored Dulcimer using an electric tuner and the scale I posted is what came up at each fret. However I think what Ken is saying is that if played it gives a clean do re me do not worry about my tuner? I will have to try that. I will also re-check the gauges but I did use the string guage calculator at Strothers.com and came up with 22 for D and 14 for A. One other thing, the fellow I bought this from thought it had been tuned to C but could not really remember. If this is a just intoned fret board tuned to some combination of old tuning beginning with C, would my tuning to D take it out of tune or throw off the doe re me scale? I am going to lower the action and play around with tunings and gauges but If that doesn't work I only paid $20 for it and for that price it would still look good on the wall.
I have attached pictures of the Bridge and tailpiece. Both the Bridge and Tailpiece were floating but I put them back exactly where they were. It has a short VSL of only 24 3/8". It sounds fine to me in open tuning but I just do not know what to do with that scale.
Here are some more photos of the front of the headstock and the Fretboard
I finally found the time to work on this old dulcimer. Since it was plywood I felt comfortable using Murphy's Oil Soap and I think it came out ok. I used WD-40 on the tuning gears and it loosened them right up. The only problem was that the screws holding the gears to the head piece were stripped. When I tried to re-string the tuners pulled away from the head piece. I replaced the screws and that seemed to take care of that.
My main concerns now are with the fret scale and height of the strings above the frets. I tuned the open strings to DAA but the melody line runs a scale of A C D D# F G A B D E F# G# C# D# F#. I am wondering if my dulcimer is just intoned or just out of tune?
As I said earlier this dulcimer is a 40 year old reproduction of an earlier dulcimer. The Fretboard is only one inch wide. The strings sit high off the fretboard and it came with a monster sized noter. I think it was meant to be played noter drone but I really don't know if it is playable. HELP!
I attached some photos.
Here are some pictures. As soon as I got it I used a slightly damp papertowelto get the heaviest dust off. It is still pretty dusty, especially in the crevices along the fret board. The board is decorated with a floral design the builder told me he hand burned into the wood.
Thanks for the input. I am trying to upload some pictures but they are on my iPad and I see the uploader requires flash. I will send them to my computer and upload later. Its my understanding that the fellow made it from scratch. That it was not a kit. He copied it from an older wooden one he had at the time but is long since gone. I can't wait to clean it and restring it. Even with the old rusted out of tune strings it has a nice loud sound coming out of the sound box for a narrow dulcimer. I am going to measure it and put its measurements in a later post.
