Need help, strings cutting in to tail
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Hello all,
I picked up my first dulcimer several months back and found that it would go out of tune after a day or so. After further investigation, I noticed that the middle and melody strings had cut in to the tail and were going deeper with each tuning.
Since I hadn't paid much for the instrument, I decided to solve the problem by cutting the tail at the top end and placing a bit of aluminum rod for the strings to rest on... This dulcimer hasn't gone out of tune since.
I have since acquired a number of dulcimers and am having the same problem with two others but don't want to modify them, as they are much nicer and were quite a bit more expensive.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can stop this without permanent alterations?