Forum Activity for @dwain-wilder

Classical guitarists deal with this issue by learning to handle the wound strings differently, and accepting a little squeak as part of the instrument. Kind of like accepting that a pipe organ will have some "chuff."

There are squeakless strings, though.

Hi MJ, this appears to be a Standard Teardrop, AD2. The signature is genuine Walter Martin.

How was the dulcimer supplied? Was the top separate? or did you disassemble it? It is unusual is several regards:

• 1. It is an unfinished instrument.
  • The saddle slot has not been cleared and cleaned
  • There are no string pins
  • The pegholes have not been reamed
  • The top linings show signs of being prepped for gluing the top on, but there is no evidence that the top was ever glued on then removed, in the area you photographed. Walt used wood glue (aliphatic resin) which is not easily reversible when applied to redwood (a wood very prone to splitting under any such separating pressure).
• The hook latch on the tailblock holding the fretboard in place is not placed to hold the fretboard firmly, nor in its correct position

Unfortunately, Walt did not begin keeping a registry of his dulcimers until he had built 100, so yours is the last unregistered Sunhearth. If you like, I can add it to the registry. I'll need your name, date of acquisition, and if possible, who you acquired it from (perhaps the original owner).

You could assemble the instrument and outfit it as originally designed if you like. You may be able to find enough detail at my website, bearmeadow.com, to do that. Several people have written me over the years to say they used the info under the various menus to build their first dulcimers. But putting together a Sunhearth is essentially what is described there, and illustrated. Or send me a private message message with your email and I'll send you details.

[quote="NateBuildsToys"]

I had no idea there were so many factors to consider. I'm used to switching between tunings on the banjo like crazy and assumed I'd have a similar experience on the dulcimer.

[/quote] 
It's not usually an issue, but with a mass produced dulcimer, there may be small manufacturing oversights to resolve. I would say the easiest solution is definitely to just glue both the bridge and nut into their slots with a drop or two of superglue. You probably don't want to use a bunch of glue, to avoid mess and in case you later want to replace them.

[/quote] 

Probably a good solution, though not having a firm seat for the saddle robs the dulcimer of full response being delivered to the fretboard and soundboard.

If there is a way to find out whether the problem is inaccurate flatting in the bottom of the saddle or of its seat in the fretboard, and fixing the problem, the Roosebeck might sound a lot better, and be more responsive.

And yes, AG, I understand being out of the U.S. and wanting a dulcimer that isn't a budget-buster. Good luck with your Roosebeck!

That suggests that either (or all) the fretboard and saddle and nut are not flat. If you have a good straight-edge ruler you can use that to find which (if any) of them are flat.

If none are flat, you can approximate a mating by holding a piece of sandpaper against the fretboard in the area the nut should sit and rubbing the nut along the fretboard in very short strokes. Use 120A sandpaper for this (120 is the grit size, A designates a light paper backing. A heavier backing will not give as accurate a match between the surfaces).

It seems Roosebecks are dulcumer-shaped objects made in Pakistan (see https://riverboatmusic.com/app_dulc/app_dulc.htm)

Given that, my estimate is there is no guarantee that the fret placement is accurate. I am very surprised that the nut does not have a slot to sit in! Determining where both the nut and the saddle should be is a problem that requires some precise measurements between various frets. 

A couple of close-up photos of the fretboard in the region of the nut and the saddle might be helpful in suggesting how to deal with this instrument's troubles.

I think Dusty hits it square in the middle.

But an exploration of the edges brings me to feel "folk" vs "some other kind" is notional, communal, and somewhat conventional —and more than a bit bizarre and ultimately uninteresting. I remember the '90s, for instance when arguments raged about the 'rightness' of putting a 6-1/2 fret on a dulcimer. The addition robbed the dulcimer of its folk status for some people, and cast it into some undefined state in which they seemed to imagine the proponents wanted to play chords and render Broadway hits music, which outraged them.

And that did come to pass! And some dulcimers are now commissioned as chromatic, not diatonic instruments at all. Blue Grass, jazz, renditions of classical music are arranged for dulcimers, either diatonic, altered diatonic or chromatice. DF#A is a well-known tuning scheme for playing Broadway musicals.

Another such edge is the status of the banjo, the ukulele, the African kalimba (thumb piano).

There are serious stylists and accomplished masters of all these instruments, yet only a few can walk onto a stage for an evening's solo concert and come away with much more cash than enough to pay their hotel and travel expenses.

That seems to imply another 'edge' to the consideration of whether an instrument is 'folk' or is somehow otherwise meant for 'serious' music —in other words, music people are willing to pay $50-$100 for a ticket.

In the world of rock, pop music, currently, people are paying truly fabulous amounts for leading singers and bands, while other very worthwhile, serious musicians keep squeaking by financially for the love of the music. Yet no consideration is in evidence about whether they are 'folk performers' or not. Is what Taylor Swift sings 'folk?' Nobody cares about the answer.

In sum, I think the love of the music is a much more interesting way to consider an instrument, those who play it, and the breadth of its repertoire, than whether it is a folk instrument. In the end, isn't any instrument available to and actively used by ordinary people a folk instrument?

BTW, a good friend of mine is a master of the hammer dulcimer.  She made her first mountain dulcimer in my basement—while playing the French horn in high school. And she may still have a French horn. I'll have to ask her sometime.

Oops! I forgot to say multiply the measurement by two! So your scale length is 24-1/2"

From your description it seems likely the problem is at the nut/zero fret. I forgot to ask which you have. If it is a zero fret, you might try slipping a thin palette knife under it and gently pry it up a bit. Not a long-term solution, but if it decreases the buzzes that's a clue the you need a zero fret with a slightly higher crown.

If your dulcimer has a nut, there are two options:

1. Examine the top of the nut to see whether the strings are in slots deeper than the bass string. The bass string should not be much lower than its diameter (so its top surface in its slot should be about level with the top of the nut, perhaps a frog's hair lower). Over time with much playing and re-tuning, strings can wear the nut down, digging deeper into their slots and begin buzzing. Since this is a donated dulcimer, there is no telling how well it was treated before it got to you.

2. If the strings look fine in their nut slots, there remains the possibility that the nut never was high enough. Ya never know what some else is able to tolerate (or play around, despite) in the way of odd buzzes. In this case, pry the nut loose and slip a piece of business card stock, sized to fit the base of the nut, in as a shim. Retune and check for buzzes. You may need two such shims.

But more than two shims would suggest something even more fundamental and dire is going on —such as the whole tailblock becoming loose from its glued foundations in the sides and back, and cocking up when you tune the instrument. Let us then pray...

Hi MJ, we'll need more info about buzzing before giving advice:

Are all the strings buzzing?
Are the buzzes on a single fret or a group (or groups) of frets?
What is the scale length (measure from the nut or the center of the zero fret to the 7th fret to get the nominal scale length).
What are the string gauges?
What is each one tuned to?
Can you slip a nickel coin between the last fret and the bass string?
Is there any buzzing on the open (not pushed down at any fret) strings?

Ah! I missed seeing Kawalek. I think I met him at last year's Nutmeg Festival, in Milford, CT. Fantastic work, and a very unassuming guy. When I asked him where he hailed from he said "I live in West Virginia, under a rock."

Yes, the Pocono. I really appreciate your interest and willingness to consider the journey!

I'll be teaching a workshop on how to repair cracks in any surface of the body of a music instrument, including gluing in cleats across the crack, entirely from outside the instrument, using a soundhole for passing in the cleats and interior clamping gear. The workshop is listed as "Laparoscopic Crack Repair." Saturday, 9-10:15

There will be plenty of time to talk with me (unless people bring a lot of cracks to be repaired, extra fret installations and other refit/repair work) and the other builders there and exchange techniques, views on effective design, finishes, etc. Currently, David Fox, Bernd Krause and Gerry Heinrich are the other dulcimer builders registered as vendors. And as Ken mentions, he will be there for this workshop. Looking forward to visiting with you, Ken!

A good summation, Dusty. It is much easier to have such a discussion about a music instrument with strict conventions such as the violin family of instruments. But even there it eventually defies mere words to show how to make a great instrument.

And fretted instrument builders are constantly innovating, experimenting and analyzing, with a huge range of effect (both desirable and miserable). I've heard that sound posts can deaden a dulcimer from several who tried, and here we read of two luthiers who got a success with them in dulcimers, one even defining exactly where to position the two sound posts!

That constant exploration creates a rich field of personal experience and deep knowledge, but it is not analytical knowledge one would expect from following scientific method. On the other hand, scientific method and analysis will yield any amount of numerical data on a musical instrument, but none of those numbers will tell you anything about what makes it a good instrument or a poor one.

Much better than analytical method is the experiential method, otherwise known as the heuristic. Using the heuristic method is simply making an educated guess that some design change will make a certain desired difference. So one builds an instrument with that one specific change and assesses the results of the guess. If it seems to have worked, build 9 more instruments identically as possible and see if your result is repeatable. If not, dead end alley. But if the effect you wanted is found then try making 10 instruments with a little less of your change and 10 made with an accentuation of your change and see which direction, if any, seems headed more toward your 'goldilocks' point.

It is a very slow process, but it is evidence-based in a way that numerical analysis never is. And the longer you follow your intuition, the better it becomes at a deep but ultimately black art that one cannot write out as a rational explanation but can easily teach, in person. to a student who wants to learn by first-hand experience. It's all like learning how to sharpen a cabinet scraper properly so it will scrape a curl off a plank of redwood without tearing the grain. One can spend a decade learning that unless one has a tearcher, and most of what one learns is in the final year (ask me how I know that...). That's what 'black art' means to me: something I can show someone how to do, but they will not be able to do it from my verbal description, no matter how fine a description it is.

That makes these kinds of forums rather like rumpus rooms, each of us speaking from our own understanding of our craft but rarely meeting in a setting where we could actually demonstrate the validity of what we are saying.

Festivals would be a good place for dulcimer builders to hold workshops for each other. I'll be holding one in a festival soon, at East Stroudsburg, PA, later in April

I am unclear about whether you are talking about string tension itself, the effect of string tension when mounted on the fretboard or the instrument body, or a wider question about the effects of tension on the instrument.

If you are talking about the effect of strings mounted on the fretboard, yes, it does has an effect. The effect is almost entirely lateral (depending on how high the play action is), and will be considerable if the fretboard is attached with ordinary woodworker's glue (aliphatic resin, 'yellow glue), unless it is stopped by the peghead (in which case the stress is transferred to a considerable degree to the joint of the peghead to the body (I had one dulcimer fail due to the accumulated stress on a peghead that had a hidden internal wood flaw).

The matter of string stress on the body of the instrument is a much more complex matter, as it involves construction techniques, the internal bracing and stresses within the body, and the overall design shape and geometric details.

The Pocono Dulcimer Festival now has my workshop listed: Workshop descriptions, pg 4: "Laparoscopic Crack Repair"

Here is the registration and schedule page

Would be great to see you there, Ken.  I can't remember whether we've met before.

And Marg, thanks so much for mentioning the workshop and letting me know a player is interested in it. I was raised in East Texas, and always glad to see a Texan.

By the way, at the upcoming Pocono Club Dulcimer Festival in Stroudsburg, PA (April 27, 27) I will be teaching a workshop for builders and repairers on how to fix cracks anywhere inside musical instruments, including aligning the two sides of the crackand cleaning the inside surface across the crack in preparation for glueing an interior reinforcing cross cleat.

All this is done from outside the inside the instrument! I pass all interior materials though the nearest soundhole, and clamp the crack with interior/exterior matching magnets, and clamp the cleat with a system of springs and stops. The workshop title is "Laparoscopic Crack Repair."I will be repairing a crack on an old dulcimer that was such a failure that I cut it in half to use for this sort of demonstration.

Attached is a photo of the interior cleat glued and clamped across the crack inside —all arranged with a thread passed through a small hole drilled into the crack and later repaired.

This workshop isn't on the website's schedule yet, as Norm Williams and I just talked about it last week. Builders, please spread the word!

 Cleat-Placed-Fxed-m.jpg - 469KB

Sometimes this sort of crack happens when the dulcimer is lifted or carried by grasping it by the top and back. The back is usually sturdier, but the top will crack at either its weakest wood grain or where the strain is greatest. The area where the top is glued to the fretboard is an area least able to respond by bending when the top is pressed by being lifted like this.

I see no reason here to suspect that was the cause, but builders regularly have to caution musicians to always lift the dulcimer by the peghead or tailblock (or strap) rather than putting the top and back into a vise-like grip between the thumb and fingers.

Similarly, trying to lift a mountain dulcimer by grasping the fretboard risks pressing fingernail dents into the top.

Hi Nate,

You describe a common problem. And different string makers use different core diameters (and some use hexagonal core wire, so it bites into the winding for improved performance. And I too sometimes find that in a tuning such as DDAd I have to compensate the A string at the nut. Curiously, this is not on every instrument.

And I find that choosing string sets that operate at equal/similar tensions minimizes compensation of the saddle, as well as producing brilliance in each string that is in a similar 'brilliance envelope', so that playing a scale across all the strings does not sound different from playing the same scale on a single string.

I have a spreadsheet that computes string tension for sets of strings, given their operating pitch, string diameter and whether plain or wound. It turns out that the the fudge factor "k" needed to compute the tension of wound strings is very similar for most of the strings I've encountered (GHS, DR, etc.), so an average can be used for a given manufacturers' strings.

PM me if you'd like me to email the spreadsheet. Requires MS Excel. At present I can only supply it in Mac 64-bit word (Catalina OS and higher), but soon will have it available in the more widely used 32-bit word version. Either one should work in a PC Windows environment also...

You could ask the builder and try the dulcimer out. 

As for price, I would suggest you play the instrument, ask the builder what it costs, and decide for yourself if it is worth it. If you are a beginner, it is important to get some basic matters clear about what makes a good music instrument.

I have a buyer's guide on my website at https://www.bearmeadow.com/models/ordering/html/buying.html

Hope that helps

I'll refer back to Ken's question: What thoughts were you looking for?

You seem to be satisfied with the dulcimer. Maybe you could be more explicit with the reason for your question/speculation about the quality of its, other woods, cracking problems. I couldn't see evidence of cracks in your photos.

In my experience, figured wood is not good tonewood. Ken is probably right about it producing a brighter tone. Whether it would be responsive and capable of good sustain is another question.

That being said, so much is determined by the maker's design and process.

Many years ago the Guild of American Luthiers held a contest for the best guitar made with unconventional wood. The winning guitar was made from a shipping pallet.

Some builders do build flat fretboards. When there are as many frets as the dulcimer has, though, the problem of getting the lowest action becomes very much like that of designing auditorium seating.

Imagine an auditorium in which the seating floor is flat: even if everyone is the same height, people will have trouble seeing over the heads of those in the next row. And in the foremost rows (that cost the most to get), you begin to see less and less of the performers!

So the answer is to make the floor a long sweeping curved surface sloping gently down, each row a little lower than the one behind. That works well until about 2/3 down toward the stage: at that point the person in the next row are no longer the issue. Now the problem is that you can't see all of what's happening on-stage. So the floor has to start to rise so each row is a bit higher than the one before. Then each person can see everything on the stage.

So think of the string's "line of sight" as it is fretted at each fret, and design your fretboard so that, at each fret position, the height above the further frets is equal. If you're good at trigonometry you can solve the problem as one of the string forming a constant angle when fretted at each angle such that the sine of the angle is just a bit greater than the top of the next fret's crown. Since the distance between frets is exponential, that fretboard surface will be very interesting mathematically. (I've never done it mathematically. I prefer the heuristic method in instrument building, not analytics —except in the matter of setting frets in equal temperament).

That's a great idea! just remember to replace the nut with a packing piece so it is level with the fingerboard before starting.

Every dulcimer will have its own fingerboard 'profile,' meaning a concave 'dish', though some makers prefer to build with a flat fingerboard, I hear.

For what it's worth, I set the nut height at .015" higher than the fret crown I'm using. That seems about right for the way I profile the fingerboard.

I agree.

One way to finalize the optimum action height the dulcimer is capable of is to find out the minimum saddle height at which the bass string doesn't buzz, then add .005". A set of number drills (1-60) is great for this, since each drill is a very small variant of its neighboring drills' diameter. So remove the bridge and substitute a number drill. Intonation doesn't matter for this test of course, but you do want to be tuned to playing pitch.

Pluck the bass string at each fret forcefully (sideways, not vertically). Substitute the next smaller or larger drill bit shank, depending on whether you find a buzzing fret. If you find a buzz on only a single fret, consider dressing that fret crown down a bit. After you've found a drill shank that represents the minimum action height on the bass, check for buzzes on the other strings. That's a check of the whole fingerboard's surface regularity, and the possibility that some frets aren't well seated or have worn or grooved crowns.

Nice job! Watch out about the string winding on the bass peg: if it gets all the way to the pegbox wall it can interfere with tuning and setting the peg.

If you ever have to do another peg setting, ease up gradually on the final reaming, then turn the reamer backwards to burnish the wood. The object is to have about 1/32" of the little end sticking outside the pegbox, so that future peg wear will give you plenty of peg left in case you need to enlarge the hole a bit. And fhen finish the peg end to a nice domed button by rubbing its end in a 1-1/2" diameter circular motion on a soft sanding pads, from 100G down thourgh the grit range to 320G. Then finish off with red rouge on a polishing wheel. (Mineral spirits clean up the rouge very well). That results in a very attractive pegbox.

I'm sort of overwhelmed with commissions now and not accepting any until I get the backlog cleared. I can refer you to one of my students, though, if and when you like. (Or who knows, maybe I'll have the backlog well on the way to completion by the time you're ready!). But as I get older I work slower and more carefully, so each instrument takes longer than the previous one.

Congratulations! So many dulcimer players do not want fricion pegs. That may be due to a number of circumstances that we could all bring to mind. A good story of well-fitted set of pegs is always a joy to read!

Do you have the fine tuners? They are the little ebony trapezoidal buttons on the string between the saddle and the nose of the tailpiece. Sliding them will control the tuning by about a semitone.

Ken, if you're certain on giving Curt this advice on setting his own wooden pegs without professional help, please also include how to fine-fit the taper, and how dress the pegs for the proper fit and proper amount of sticking friction to ensure easy and sseure tuning.

You're way beyond me if you can describe that without giving a hands-on lesson.

Sorry, I didn't read the whole thread before responding. Somehow I got a private message and just responded to that. I didn't know Stay-Tites came in two sizes! Yes, they do appear to be the banjo size I see on dulcimers from time to time.

The original pegs were rosewood viola pegs, by the way. If you prefer them, the pegs need to be hand-fitted to the peghead. A violin string shop could supply the pegs and fit them properly. If you do not have the fine tuners I can supply them.

Those are not banjo mechanical tuners at all. They are the dreaded Grover Stay-Tites. They weren't fitted them with the grace of  fitted small end peg hole plugs properly made cross-grain to make a good finish for such a fine instrument.

I would recommend having them replaced at a string shop (not a guitar repair shop!) with Pegheds or Witmer mechanical pegs. I prefer Pegheds for their adjustable holding friction.

Walt Martin occasionally-fitted Schaller banjo pegs. But they were customized, cut down to match the pegbox wall thickness. He also re-sculpted and crpss-drilled the stem's string-hole to match, so the strings weren't pulling on the pegs unsupported and destructive to the planetary gears.

On closer examination it seems you are most probably correct! And if so, closing that gap would be disastrous for the top.

And thus the pins should remain where they are too.

The crucial thing is whether the fretboard's upper surface curves up. There should be a very slight concave 'dish' to reduce string's buzzing against frets.

@Nate, yes that is the general idea. But those thin pins would themselves be under severe bending tension. I would recommend 1/8" brass rod rather than the brads. And mount them with only about 1/8" showing above the surface at about -15° from horizontal, so the strings tend to seat at the pins' base rather than at their ends.

If one wants to accommodate both loop end and ball-end strings, one end of the brass rods can be turned (or filed) down to a diameter to fit inside the strings' ball-end. That is the arrangement for my Standard Series dulcimers.

Interesting notes from Ken, Strumelia and Nate. Definitely a legacy dulcimer, worth some work.

A further improvement at the tailblock would be to move the string pins down, below the break. Where they are now, the string tension tends to re-open the break rather than reinforce the repair.

You might begin by applying a clamp to the tailpiece and drawing it down to where it almost touches the bottom of the tailblock. The easing a folded length of 100g sandpaper and clamping just enough to enable the paper to be drawn back and forth, getting some clean wood. Then you can relax the clamp, brush in some glue and re-clamp to fully join the break.

That break was likely caused by the design feature of a cut-away top along the sides of the last few inches of the fretboard, intended to increase the volume perhaps.

Further fasten that break by drilling a tapered hole for a screw long enough to engage about an inch of the bottom half of the tailblock break. Tapered screw drills can be purchased at good hardware stores. Your photos don't show any sense of the actual size of things, but a #8x1-1/2" screw might be about right.

Interesting design, otherwise! Especially the peghead. A top view of that pegbox might disclose another place where some preventive re-design would help, as it looks like the slot for the interior of the pegbox might extend right to the end of the peghead, in the view you supply!

Ah! I just looked up the term "fret scale chart" and see that it is a chart showing the pitch generated at each fret position for each string. That is easy to do with an instrument with a standard string tuning schema, such as the guitar's EADGBE.

The dulcimer is an entirely different instrument in several ways:

• Players use all sorts of tunings. D5D5A5D4 and A5A5A5D4 are to very popular ones. G4G4F3G3 is another.
• Dulcimers are essentially diatonic, like a piano without white keys
• Dulcimers have different scale lengths, ranging from 24" to 28". That allows for even greater range of tunings, and various sets of strings will be found best for each dulcimer
• Dulcimer players ask for different chromatic frets (I presume that is what you're referring to as 'blue' frets). Popular 'extra' frets are the 1-1/2 6-1/2, the 8-1/2, and 13-1/2. This is a notation developed to describe the chromatic frets on a diatonic fretboard.

So the fret scale chart for a string tuned to D5 would be DFGABCD (the fret pattern of an Appalachian dulcimer is in Mixolydian mode, meaning that the 'black' keys fall between the 2nd-3rd frets,

I have a fret calculator spreadsheet, if you use MS Excel. Stew-Mac has one too, but doesn't allow you to specify extra frets. Mine shows all extra frets.

I can't attach a spreadsheet file here, but send me a private note with an email addy and I'll send the spredsheet. MS Excel 2016 or later needed.

I like what Stumelia and Dusty write here. Dulcimer players often do not seem to care about the change in timbre when they tune strings to a different pitches (and thus different tensions). My experience is that longer strings have a warmer tone, due to the variety of undertones, as well as a different set of transient dissonance (which affects brilliance).

And what Dusty says about the player's fretting technique is important, if one is playing chords. I see many people reaching for chords with thumb and pinky. If one does that too often the thumb is liable to suffer, as it is not really structured well for fretting, which requires more lateral pressure. The hand and its members just are not built well to sustained lateral pressure.

In advising my clients about scale length I ask them to consider whether they do much chordal playing, then find the place on one of their dulcimers at which they are comfortable with forming the most demanding chord without using the thumb. Then I advise that they need a scale at which such a chord can be achieved over the first three to five diatonic frets.

I saw a poster once with a cat hanging from a clothes-line. The caption was priceless:

"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted."

Happy building!

I forgot to respond to your note in the matter of baritone dulcimers. Any dulcimer can be strung for baritone tuning.

You can outfit any dulcimer for baritone playing. The matter of getting the right strings to do that is easy to do. The effects of the baritone strings, especially the bass strings, might take a bit more work.

First you have to find the tension at which the current strings are operating at when tuned to pitch. Knowing that, it is possible to choose strings which are that same (or similar) tension when tuned to your desired baritone pitch. I  have an Excel spreadsheet for doing that.

Let me know if you'd like me to run it for your dulcimer. I'll need:

• Your scale length (measure from the nut to the 7th diatonic fret - the octave) and double that for the true scale length, don't measure from nut to saddle (it is probably set back a bit for intonation and compensation —more on that below).
• The size and tuned pitch of each of your current strings,
• The pitch you want to tune to in baritone mode (that's usually a fourth down from the conventional tuning you use). For instance a dulcimer in DDAd might be tuned for baritone in AAea.

If the action of your dulcimer is low, the results will be more satisfying, as the intonation and compensation may not change. But you may find the bass string buzzing on some frets, as the vibrational excursion (how much the string travels up and down) may be greater. (Plucking and picking it from side to side rather than pulling up on strings will improve that, though).

If your dulcimer has a floating saddle (not set in a groove), you can re-adjust it to proper intonation (the saddle set-back needed to compensate for the increased pitch caused by fretting the strings) and compensation (the saddle slant needed  to compensate for the difference in plain strings, and wound strings, of different diameters). If your dulcimer's saddle is set in a slot it will need attention from a dulcimer builder (Don't send a dulcimer in good condition to a guitar repair shop for such work unless you now the repair folks understand an respect the instrument. So many mountain dulcimers have been ruined by misbegotten notions of guitar repair people).

And the action can be adjusted by putting a thin shim under the saddle (a business card is good, but a stiff shim of wood or plastic is better). Let me know if you need help on how adjust the action for best playing and how to adjust the intonation. Instructions are also available at my website, under the menu item Dulcimer Building>Setup>. From there, look for the sub-items "Setting action" and "Intonation."

These matters all sounds complex if you've never dived into your dulcimer that far, but the problems and methods for dealing with them are easily explained. Most (probably all) of the builders here can explain them further.

As a follow-up on Ken's note, if you intend to cut slots for frets, talk to the maker of your kit about which fret-wire to use, as there is a wide variety. The kit-maker may be able to supply enough fret-wire for all the frets you'll need, for a fee.

Regarding installing frets, I agree with Ken's advice. Make sure the ends are the same width as the fretboard. If you cut them yourself to size, make sure the ends of the fret are rounded so their corners don't snag (and maybe cut) your fingertips as you play.

One additional trick I've developed for installing frets on an assembled dulcimer is to get the fret started with a few gentle taps. Then pick the dulcimer up, just clear of the workbench, by grasping the fretboard by the edges while finally tapping it home. That ensures that the rest of the dulcimer doesn't become a 'hammered dulcimer,' possibly causing cracks in the top.