Forum Activity for @susie

Matthew, happy to hear you're making music again!

Thanks, I am!

Enjoy that beautiful Appalachian dulcimer, Susie!  

Thanks! I did a short concert for my husband this morning.

Thanks Dusty, I appreciate it. 

That's a beauty, @Susie!  Congratulations.

Just received this yesterday. A Folkcraft Custom Baritone Dulcimer in Cherry, with a galax back. East Indian Rosewood fingerboard and accents. The cherry adds a little sparkle and volume to the overall lower tones. A beautiful instrument in tone and looks. Love it!

Depending on how the string slots have been cut and whether or not you can get the nut and bridge out cleanly without damage, you may be able to reuse the same nut and bridge by simply reversing them 180 degrees.  This will reverse the position of all the string slots, positioning the widest string slot farthest away from you and the narrowest string slot closest to you.

Of course, if the string slots have been modified for better intonation in one specific tuning (as is the case with most McSpadden dulcimers), it may not be possible to rotate the nut and bridge 180 degrees successfully.  

All it takes to "convert from right to left handed" is a new bridge, a new nut and a new set of strings.  They sell the micarta nut & bridge for $1 each, and strings for about $5 a set.

Staylor, I'd advertise it here on FOTMD and ask $325.00 with the understanding you may need to negotiate down a bit. I think it is easily worth that amount. Many times McSpaddens sell more quickly than others and with Christmas approaching some dulcimer player here may be wanting his or her Santa to bring them a nice dulcimer. It may be one of those that takes a month or more to sell. Just be patient. If this does not bring success you always can see if the Dulcimer Shoppe in Mountain View will consign it for you. That is so nice of you to help out your friends. So many times nice dulcimers can be bought for almost nothing because people do not know their value. Then some sellers who don't know their value price them as if they are a Strativarius. Best wishes moving it for your friends.

The dulcimer avoided the estate sale, and since I know a little about them and offered to help my friends learn its true value, I'm its current caretaker.  Which, of course, means I've spent less time lately playing guitar and banjo and more time playing this right-handed dulcimer left-handed.

Of course, it's beautiful and sounds great and I'm bonding with it.  I know it wouldn't cost much to convert it to left-handed, and--of course--I still don't really have the spare cash to give our friends what it's worth. They've been out of state and lovely wife will see what they want to do with it later this week. 

They could consign it to the music store in Mountain View, post it on this site or maybe make me a deal I can live with, guilt-free.

In the meantime, it's been a very pleasant addition to the music room in our house and, if nothing else, has confirmed that I really need to add a mountain dulcimer to our collection of stringed instruments!   Thank you all again for your help.

I agree with the others, it is beautiful!

Beautiful! Happy Birthday, John!!!

Thank you so much, friends!  I had a wonderful day.  Even squeezed in a great prime rib lunch in Ann Arbor!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you John.  I wish I had your phone number and I'd sing a bunch of birthday songs.   soooooooo lovely is walnut.  Will this be a possum board that can be removed or are you going to attach it to the dulcimer?   aloha, irene

Happy birthday John, you just gave me an idea for my replica you made for me.  Will treasure it for a long time.

Very nice John. Happy Birthday again.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

What a beauty, John!  No better way to spend time on your birthday than doing something you love.  

Happy Birthday, John.  I can't imagine a better birthday for you than building something you love to build.  That sure looks like the makings of another very nice Thomas reproduction.

Happy Birthday, John! That sawdust turned into a mighty nice looking dulcimer...

Walnut is beautiful!!! Happiest Birthday to ya!!!

Here is what's happening in the shop on my birthday.  Found the time to make some sawdust today!

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You can also order the proper set of strings from The Dulcimer Shoppe, home of McSpadden dulcimers. For your T34 you will need loop end strings. I think the price is $5.50 plus $3.00 shipping. When I looked at JustStrings the 0.023 wound strings appear to come only in a pack of 5 for $10.55. The 0.010 and 0.014 are $3.62 each for a pack of 12 strings. You need to look under Bulk strings for these.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

.011, .011, .014, .024 will probably work just fine, but if you want to get the recommended gauges I suggest you contact juststrings.com  They sell single strings of just about any gauge you could ever need, and their prices are very reasonable.

https://www.juststrings.com/singlestrings.html

Remember, strings of the same gauge are interchangeable.  You may not find strings of your desired gauge listed as "dulcimer strings", but a .010 gauge string (or .014 or .023) can be used on any instrument requiring that gauge.  Just be sure you order loop-end or ball-end strings to match the way the strings are anchored on your McSpadden.

I think you will be fine with those strings.  In fact, after so many years with the old ones, these will feel positively silky to you.  And the slightly heavier bass and treble strings should balance each other well.

Make sure double check your order for loop end, or ball end strings, whichever you need.

Those will work fine.

Finally re-stringing my 32-year-old McSpadden T34 dulcimer (yeah, I know...sorry).

For DAD tuning, they recommend 10/10/14/23. I'm having trouble finding that exact combination, so I'm wondering what might work. Yes, I understand the physics around diameter and pitch, but I'm not sure just how far you can stray from a recommended gauge before you affect either intonation or tone. 

I found some 11/11/14/24s, which seem close enough.

Thoughts?

Don's instruments also have the 1 1/2 & 8 1/2 frets.  He told me if he had it to do over again, he'd keep the 8 1/2 fret and not have the 1 1/2, for what that's worth.  He also said we need to retune to DAA for a lot of fiddle tunes.  Now on that, he's right.

John, I hope to catch up with you and get their cd's really soon!

Yes, thanks, Robin.  You came up with a winner there!

Don Pedi also has a large collection of historic instruments and gives great talks and allows "hands on" with the collection.  He brings his expertise, popular workshops  and great performances to the Homer Ledford Festival held every year on the first half of Labor Day Weekend in Winchester, KY (just east of Lexington).  It's a small festival and we always have a great time.

Matthew, I'm glad you're playing again!  

Matthew, good to see you back. By the way, we're usually in the chat room in the morning. Just to let you know.

Hi Bill:

I like that shape!   Some more info would be helpful -- dimensions: LxWxH, height & width of the fretboard.  And the VSL.   
What makes you say it's a bass dulcimer?  You know of course that it has no 6+ or 13+ frets.

Cleaning:  Start with blown air to clean out the pegbox. 

Then gently loosen the tuning pegs and remove all the strings (we don't often remove all, but in this case it will be a good thing).  AS you do, mark each tuning peg with the hole it came out of, so it can go back in the right place.  At this point we don't care what the original string gauges are because you're going to replace all the strings (this is why we need the VSL).

I can't tell from the photo, but the middle tuner on the near side looks like it's jammed much deeper into the holes than the others.  True?  Wipe down the tuners.  Do not sand them.  Other that the one tuner seeming set deep, they don't appear to be particularly damaged.  However, if they are, or you should want to replace them, those look to be standard violin tuning pegs which can be purchased individually or in sets, in a variety of woods, for as little as $1 per peg, to as much as $20 per peg. 

Purchase a bottle of Peg Dope.  It will last you for years!  When you get everything else accomplished, check back in and we can get you straight on setting it up with those wooden tuners.  I, for one, would not recommend replacing them with geared tuners,  

With the strings gone, you should then be able to remove the nut and bridge.  WHY do you want to remove the bone nut?  If you have to, they may be able to be tapped out sideways using a small wooden dowel as a punch.  We'll want vey close ups of the ends of the nut & bridge where the set into the fretboard.

With a water-damp (not soggy) soft cloth, wipe down the whole instrument, removing as much of the accumulated crud as you can.  Don't use any other kind of cleaning product yet.  

Look at the edge of the top and bottom where they overlap the sides.  I'll bet you'll discover that they are made from thin mahogany plywood.  At least that's what it looks like from seeing that scratch by the farside sound hole, and the nature of the wood grain on the top.

Luster:  Well, you could gently sand the whole thing down and refinish it with the finish of your choice.  But if it is made from plywood you really don't want to do that because it's too easy to go below that first "beauty"layer of ply.  

Probably the best thing is to apply a thin coat or two of wax, and buff.  NOT a furniture polish or any other product which contains silicon.  You want just wax.  Carnuba wax is good.  An automotive or bar top wax without any additives would be OK.

Strings:  The first thing you need to know is what open tuning you want.  You do not have to set this up as a bass dulcimer unless you want to, of course.   

Hi Matthew!  How great that something so lovely as music is helping your Parkinson symptoms. I'm glad you're back to playing!  Good luck with your exploration of a chromatic dulcimer.

Hi all! I have been away for a while, having issues with Parkinson's. back to playing again, as it seems to help me. Especially interested in chromatic dulcimers now!

I was blessed with a gift from a friend on Facebook. It's a vintage Mountain Dulcimer and it is a bass Dulcimer. It needs some TLC and refurbishing; but I believe it will be beautiful when done. My questions. How to gently remove the bone nut so I can replace it. The tuners need some attention. They are original and wooden. I would love to identity the creator; but nothing to go on. Someone suggested it might be a John Jacob Niles Mountain Dulcimer. Being a base; what gauge strings? The old ones on it look big. Lastly, how to restore its luster. Thanks in advance.

P.S. I'm sorry; but the one image is the only one I could get to load up.

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Several months ago I attended a house concert featuring the superb Irish fiddler Gerry O'Conner .  He was accompanied by a guitarist who played only in DADGAD tuning.  I was particularly intrigued because he played some chords that you rarely hear in Irish or Celtic music.  But when I talked to him after the show he confessed that he doesn't always know exactly what chord he is playing because he often lets the highest strings drone.  Note that the highest strings are A and D.  In other words, he was playing the same drones that we do on a dulcimer tuned to D!  And according to Tony McManus , the DADGAD tuning originated as a slight variation of an open D tuning, so it makes perfect sense that Robin would have found the pairing of the two instruments to work so well.

P.S. I get dizzy just looking at that picture of Robin atop the rock on Lundy Island.

This is wonderful!