Forum Activity for @ken-longfield

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!

Don is the quintessential Fingerdancer.   Nearly always on the melody string, very smooth, fast and clean transitions between notes.  He also plays Noter & Drone style.  His instruments are invariably 3 stringed but not traditional -- they have the 6+ and 13+ frets and mechanical tuners.

Yes.

When in doubt, refresh your browser page.. it often helps when things look to be 'disappeared'.

OK -- good to know... I thought it might be something I was/wasn't doing...

Just listening and not looking, it reminds me of Don Pedi and Bruce Greene, too, Robin!

Ken, the text box issues have to do with the tinyMCE text editor software that is used here. It's not something that I can fix and has nothing to do with our part of the platform.  TinyMCE is its own software, and they've been having some issues lately. I do know that they are working on fixes for their current text editor problems.  We'll have to simply let that work itself out for a few weeks.  If it continues to happen after say three or four more weeks from now, let me know again then. Thanks!

Meanwhile, the other group discussion re-ordering is being worked on to find the solution.

Doing it again JUST NOW. Interesting that in the Building group, Ken Longfield's post about Tuning Peg Knobs is still at the top of the list, but everything below that is wanky.

Also, I've notice lately (last month or so) that periodically I'll go to some random Discussion and if I try to create a Post, the text box flashes up and then disappears!  Not every time or every discussion.  It just happened now in the Discussion where someone is looking for a particular Bowed Psaltery.  I went in and out of the discussion 4 or 5 times and it finally gave me a text block to type in...

Have you had a chance to listen to the latest Hearts of the Dulcimer Podcast episode? It's called Dulcimer Lullabies . Be sure to check out the episode resource page for some extra goodies:

David Schnaufer's TAB for Starry Lullabye
AND
A chance to win a Hearts of the Dulcimer Podcast t-shirt.

Go to https://dulcimuse.com/podcast/resource/044.html to download the TAB and to enter the contest. It's time sensitive, so be sure to check it out soon!

So glad you are enjoying this video, friends! 

@John-Shaw I only have one of their cd's yet am sure the others are just as good.  It's funny you mention Bruce Greene because this duo reminds one, in ways, of Bruce Greene & Don Pedi's play together.   

Thanks for posting this, Robin!  I've been a big fan of Hog-Eyed Man for 3 or 4 years, and all of their 4 CDs get my highest recommendation.  Jason Cade was a pupil from a very young age with the great Bruce Greene, and Rob McMaken is a subtle, beautiful dulcimer player.  

Thanks for this Robin!!

Real nice! Thanks, Robin!

That's great SkipII!  You have an advantage already-  you are aware that you can do various things by using various tunings, and also you don't seem to be afraid of trying out new things.  Good for you!  Have FUN with your music and your instruments.  :D

Thanks, all, for the generous and helpful responses. I'm going with DAD for now on my Warren May, but might keep my McFadden at DAA. I'm already drawn. to Bing Futch's style but I'm sure I'll expand that.