That's a crack in the headstock, not the fretboard. They are two separate pieces. So there should be no danger of the crack spreading into the actual fretboard.
As Matt describes, carefully add drops of thin superglue to fill up the crack. Then you'll be able to tell if the crack is spreading.
Not too light.... a bit light. But since you're playing bare finger chording and bare finger strumming, and are just getting started, the slightly reduced string tension will help your fingers. I play Noter & Drone style, and would probably use a .022, .014 and .012 strings. With experience you'll discover which strings work best for you. Strings are cheap, and finding which strings work best for your style of play is part of learning the art of the dulcimer.
That .020 should be a wound string; the others should be plain steel. The only other thing you need to know to buy or order strings is what kind of ends the existing strings have -- brass ball ends or plain loops.
David Bennet posted this on ED the other day. The archive was on-line somewhere else a few years ago, and disappeared. Now it's on ISSUU:
https://issuu.com/dulcimerplayersnewsinc/stacks
Go to www.strothers.com and enter your VSL -- the distance between nut and bridge. Then enter the basic tuning that you are using -- DAA or DAd (not DAD or you'll get the wrong string size) one at a time -- and the calculator will do all the work for you.
Brand is irrelevant -- there are a literal handful of companies in the world which make music wire of various gauges, and they sell boxcar loads of the stuff to Martin, D'Addario, D'Arco and other string "manufacturers" who put on the ends (ball or loop), cut the string to various lengths, and put them in packages. It's all the same wire, regardless of the name on the package.
Personally I buy strings from www.juststrings.com because I can buy sets of strings for under $3 per set instead of the $5 to $8 you pay for brand name strings from a music shop.
When it comes time to replace the strings, only remove and change one string at a time. If you remove them all, you stand a chance of moving the location of the bridge, which can really mess up how your dulcimer sounds...
My bad description -- it is a deep grooved circle in the scroll end of the head. Easy to make with a router and some router-experience.
No maker's label inside?
To me those scrolls aren't particularly distinctive. I've seen a lot of builders make that sort of 'grooved scroll'.
It's not square inches of sound hole per X amount of surface area... the equation uses the volume of the instrument, not the surface area, so the shape of the instrument is irrelevant -- hourglass, teardrop, box, little brown jug, bowed psaltery, violin, etc. For dulcimers I use, as a rough guide, the area of 4 American quarter coins -- not as much as 6, not as few as 3.
The shape of the soundhole(s) is irrelevant. It's the square area of holes that matters. Too little soundhole area and the instrument is muted. Too much soundhole area and the instrument sounds "brash". There's a complex formula called the Helmholtz Equation where you can calculate all this is you like partial differential equations. But most of us just say want 2-3 square inches of sound hole area for a 'good' sound.
You can certainly do leaves -- Cripple Creek was famous for their Aspen leaf holes -- and any decent luthier will know how many leaves to get the right sound...
I once built a replica Baltic Psaltery, on which the original instrument had just over 100 soundholes arranged in a spiral design, each hole was a hair less that 1/8" diameter....
Time frame for return? I'd say two weeks. That gives a buyer plenty of time to decide whether you "like" an instrument or not, and determine that the instrument plays and tunes correctly. If the fret-spacing is off, or the tuners won't hold, or the baritone sound isn't what you expected, then a luthier or a store should take the instrument back, although, as Dusty sez, you'll probably have to pay shipping.
If you custom orders things like extra frets or custom sound holes or carvings, or color-dyed wood, and you just don't like it, then caveat emptor . You, the buyer, should have experimented with a taped on extra fret, or you and the luthier should have exchanged photos of carvings/colors long before the instrument was completed or shipped. IMHO a customized instrument cannot be returned, because a luthier or store will be hard pressed to find someone who wants that sort of customization, and will lose a lot of money.
Dealing with friends???? Good luck with that!!!
So here's my technique for hollowing the body plank. I set the drill press to leave 1/8" below the tip of the spike. Then I use a chisel to remove the webs between holes and smooth the edges.
Not names, really, just identifiers -- "the Uncle Ed", "the Hogfiddle", "the Walking Stick" etc.
Jean Ritchie is supposed to have said something to the effect that "...if it's got extra frets, somehow it's not a dulcimer anymore..." But I can't find who told me that quote originally a year or so back.
That Cologne lyre is mine. It's about 8" wide x 22" long and tapers from 1-1/8" thick at the bottom to 5/8" thick at the tuners. It's hollowed out all under the mango top, even up the arms. I've offered it for sale a couple times, but no takers. Maybe they think that the bridge is yellow plastic not real amber or something...
It has a nice quiet tone, perfect 'porch' instrument or "personal music maker".
Cute, Irene! We argue all the time about whether it should be pronounced "leer" or "liar".
Here's the first Lyre I made a few years ago. It's more or less a reconstruction of a 5th century (Charlemagne era) lyre from a grave site near what is now Cologne, Germany. Maple, body, spalted Mango soundboard, Baltic amber bridge, tailpiece of pear wood, and ukulele strings! On this one I opted for autoharp tuning pegs rather than tapered wooden pegs. The next ones will have tapered wood pegs.
Well, when I get this one put together I'll see what I can come up with for a sound clip or two...
Dan makes very nice traditional instruments. Does this one have feet on the bottom? Either way, play her using a possum board and you'll be amazed at how much volume you'll get. If you go down to Home Despot or Lowe'st you can find a poplar plank the same width or just a bit wider, about 1/2" thick, and make a matching possum board very easily...
These are/were 6 string lyres -- "Pentatonic+" as it is thought of ... I tune them in the simple pentatonic do, re, mi, sol, la, Do.
Kolrosing is such an easy (for values of 'easy') way to add really intricate decoration. You do have to be able to follow the lines though!
I was recently gifted with some beautiful wood to make a couple of lyres. I have Myrtle and Maple for body planks and soundboards, as well as Port Orford Cedar for soundboards. Lyres have "carved" bodies about an inch thick, hollowed out to a 1/4" or less thick back, and a soundboard applied over the top.
The ones I'm reconstructing here are based on instruments found in an archaeological dig near Oberflacht, Germany, before WWII. The graves are from a "pre-German" or Allemanic site dated to the late 600s AD.
This one will have a Myrtle body and a Port Orford Cedar soundboard decorated, as you can see, by "kalrose carved" designs. Kalrose carving is to wood as scrimshaw is to bone/horn. The designs were taken from some standing stones I visited while in Scotland. The "Celtic knotwork" type designs were popular all over western Europe and the British Isles.
Interesting, and obviously home made fine tuners. With that VSL, the builder could have intended this to be a baritone or bass dulcimer. And with that VSL it would be hard for many modern players to use for Chord Melody style.
The New River in NC was designated a Wild and Scenic Waterway back in 1976... Beautiful waterway north of Blowing Rock.
Contact The Dulcimer Shop in Blowing Rock, NC. I'll bet they have some information. Likewise Song of the Wood, in Black Mountain NC, where your friend bought the instrument may have more info.
Nellie -- without seeing the pictures you are looking at we simply cannot tell anything about the instrument. Post the pictures here so we can help.
You said: "Is wr walnut and redwood? If that is true than not plywood so should not darken?"
Plywood does not darken compared to solid wood in any scenario I've seen in over 60 years as a woodworker.
No, but I've seen them; better for sittin I use a waiter's tray table
Glenda -- your dulcimer sounds as if it were set up to be a Galax style instrument without having the double back. It would be tuned ddd (not DDD).
To change it to a bass instrument you would need to replace all of the strings (one at a time), and re-tune.
If it were me, I'd cut BIG holes in the sides that will be joined together, and then glue them up; That way the sound can travel from end to end of the body very easily
FWIW, in 40 years of dulcimers I've seldom seen a good dulcimer where the fretboard extended beyond the body, regardless of how many instruments the builder has made
linda2 -- a little research shows that Milford Blevins was quite a prolific regional instrument maker from Tennessee who passed away in early 2016. Given the number of instruments he built over the years, I would assume that his instruments were fretted correctly. Mr Blevins was certainly no "one-off" builder who had little Idea of what he was doing!
stewart -- the Galax dulcimer is a "special case" of dulcimers designed and built in Virginia. Most of the VA dulcimers were elliptical or slightly teardrop in shape, but did not have the very deep sides and double back of the Galax regional instrument.
The museum instrument dated about 1800 is elliptical, about 1" deep, and perhaps 5-6" wide.
Galax dulcimers are elliptical, tend to be about 3" deep, almost invariably have the signature double back, and are noticeably wider -- 7-8" or thereabouts
When we say "a dulcimer is tuned to G (or D or C)" what we are most commonly referring to is not the key of the song being played (as Dusty so well explains), but the fact that unlike a chromatic instrument like a guitar, we tune the whole (mostly) diatonic dulcimer to a particular keynote. The keynote of the dulcimer is, under most circumstances and with most tunings, the note that the bass string is tuned to.
The Ginger instruments are designed and built to be pitched up higher -- G rather than D or C. Think of it as a soprano rather than an alto or tenor voice. That's not to say you can't put appropriate strings on it and play in C or B. However, the tiny volume of the body means that the instrument won't resonate as good as possible when tuned down that low.
Interesting. Especially the folklore of the "Scottish" instrument which we know is not accurate -- the British Isles never had a dulcimer-relative instruments until the early 20th century. Virginia is certainly one of earliest dulcimer-producing areas -- there is a dulcimer in a museum there reliably dated to 1800.
I use a triangular folding camp stool with a back when playing sitting.
A friend just picked up this instrument. The fret markers and soundholes are unique. No label inside, but "P.L. Purser Wareham, Mass" is on the headstock... Evidence points to this being built in the 1960s/70s
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212114415550201&set=a.1478176308940.63482.1069737994&type=3
They are your cigar boxes, do with them as you please. I think most builders keep them right side up to show off the cigar makers labels and such. Either way around, the insides certainly can be used for storage; but as you say, you do need to insure that they don't open spontaneously.
Technique works really well for Little Drummer Boy and a couple other tunes I know. You do have to keep the 'hammer' over the strum hollow for good clean strikes that don't knock wood.
Here's the Strothers String Gauge calculator:
http://www.strothers.com/string_choice.html
Plug in your VSL and the open notes of your tuning, and your string gauges should be at least the numbers shown there.
Is the buzz only on the second picking of the same string? Could it be you're digging deeper/harder on the second pick and making the tring vibrate wildly? If the buzz isn't an "all the time" thing, then the cause pretty much has to be your technique......
Marg -- just as with a regular dulcimer body, the larger the total interior volume, the more bass/baritone response you get, as well as more volume
Lois -- remember that the vast majority of those Mixolydian tune book songs are not Mixolydian modal songs. They are Ionian Mode songs being played in Mixolydian DAd using the 6+ fret.
Don -- Play what works for you, GDD, GDg, QRS, TUV, WXYZ.... Nothing wrong with the key of G, especially on those smaller instruments. Just remember that your GDD dulcimer can play DAA tabulature, and your GDg dulcimer can play DAd tabulature, as written. No need to change to the key of D.
From your page, select Events/Single Instructor Events. Up comes a new page with the banner
Discussions » Single-Instructor Workshops, Band & House Concerts, Club Activities, Monthly Jams
and at the right side of the banner, click the + When you do a new page appears titled
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with a text edit box below it where you type your information
Leo -- "Latest Activity" is the latest things that you have written, not the latest activity on the site as a whole. From my page I click on Forum, then choose which Discussion I want to add something to There I click the + to start a new thread
Don-- it's fine to use your thumb, but you can't really call it "Noter" since there is no separate stick -- it's called Melody & Drone rather than Noter & Drone
I know a couple folks who took cardboard dulcimer fretboards and attached them to an old fiddle case (!!) and made a pretty good sounding dulcimer! You can make all sorts of thin wood boxes with "craft lumber" from Lowes of Home Despot, to make really nice looking box dulcimers
