The answer to this mystery is described here: https://fotmd.com/forums/forum/site-questions-how-do-i/35300/mystery-solved-comment-walls-not-indexed-in-site-searches
Comments in Comment Walls are not indexed within site searches.
Discussion threads in Groups and Forums ARE included in site searches for phrases.
FYI: All Warren May dulcimers have a lifetime warranty on playability if you are the original owner according to his website.
I agree that the green foam is not causeing any problems. But Warren made that dulcimer to be used with "ball-end" strings. If you remove those loop-end-strings and just slide ball-end strings in from the rear, it will surely look a lot nicer.
I would take it to Warren and ASK him about the instrument. He keeps good records and should know whether this was a "just intonation" fret scale or what exactly is going on.
"If the length of the first fret is less than the length of the second it is just intonation"
Start at the bottom of the thread and you will find some helpful information, to be sure.
Check the fret spacing using a fret calculator.
Two possibilities given your new information.
1. (Less Likely) This would have been early in Warren May's dulcimer building career. He may have been in the early stages of getting proper intonation, something he improved with more time and experience. In other words, he may have misplaced the frets enough to be noticable.
2. (More Likely) Warren does make dulcimers with just intonation. Since you said the chords didn't sound right, that sounds like the dulcimer may have been built with just intonation. Just intonation is going to sound really good with the drones, but not so good if you are trying to make chords. The frets have been positioned to blend with the drones, not for making chords. Traditionally, dulcimers were built with just intonation out of necessity since the frets extended only under the melody string(s), you couldn't play chords. When builders made the switch to full-width frets, chords became possible and some builders adjusted their fret placement to accommodate chord playing.
And I wouldn't worry about the felt or foam on the tail end. It's there to protect the tail end of the dulcimer and to prevent the strings from digging into the wood. As long as its not under the vibrating section of the string it shouldn't cause a problem. Many dulcimer builders put some felt, leather, etc. between the strings and the tail end of the dulcimer. You can remove it if it annoys you, but it probably has nothing to do with your intonation problems.
Intresting............I have 2 Warren May's of similar construction. I really can't say for sure but it looks like the strings on the bridge are seated on some sort of foam rubber. If I were going to bet on finding the problem I would start by removing that and if I had to,use a piece of felt or better yet, nothing whatsoever.
You could send these pics to Warren and I can all but guarentee that help help you figure it out. I really don't think the cold dorm room did any damage to it, but Warren will surely tell you about that too.
What have you got to lose?
Thanks for all the good advice! Here is more information. This is a Warren May dulcimer. He taught industrial arts at my high school in 1973 and I bought the dulcimer then. I learned to play it a little at the time, then neglected it for many years while I was working. When I retired just recently I decided to get serious about learning to play it, so I had the strings replaced. The intonation issue is pretty noticeable on chords. I didn't notice it when I first got it, which makes me think that it is something that happened over the years. I am embarrassed to say that I left it in a college dorm room over Christmas break when it wasn't heated, and I have wondered if that had anything to do with it. I'm attaching photos.
Thanks, everyone, for your helpful responses!
Well Lois, aren't you the sleuth! I can't believe you found that! The irony is that I was the one who posted that pdf file, but it was never intended to be public. I posted it on a hidden page of my website and with no identifying information.
As you can see from the first response to my thread, Maddie Myers in Australia very generously offered to send me her copy of the book. I am still grateful for that. Shortly afterwards, someone else I've known for a few years asked if there was anyway I could share it. So I scanned the book and posted it as a "secret" link on a semi-hidden page of my website. My plan was to share the document with a single person, not to make it available to the public at large.
Since the book is out-of-print, making copies is legal. But I am still uncomfortable with the ethics of posting a free copy online, so I've taken the link down. Apologies to those who were hoping to get a copy. If there is enough interest, perhaps we should contact Randy directly or Kicking Mule publications or whoever owns the copyright.
Using the earliest Wayback Machine capture , however, produced this great resource &, yes, @ruth-lawrence , I was able to click & find "Cats in the Cradle. " I know Dusty's site (still online at this writing) let you find the song. Don't know if his link is a more recent posting from the same people after the Berkeley.edu site was dropped, but there's never enough ways to find a song when you really want it & this did indeed give a lot of 60s & 70s songs.
Scratch that if you are hoping for the actual sheet music. I went to the "Browse the Collection" tab. Scrolled down & clicked on Box 75 - Victor Herbert 1910-1920, but it doesn't work. Apparently the site just listed what they owned (& maybe the covers). If you can get to Johns Hopkins University, I suppose it's useful for serious researchers, but not for the rest of us. <SIGH!>
Like a library, the Wayback Machine feature doesn't create the material, just produces what is (or in their case, was) out there.
I tend to use the most recent date available in the hopes of it containing the most information. In this case I later checked the first posting and think the site is less useful for us than it originally appeared.
Lovers of old-time sheet music can still find the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music online even though it's no longer online at the Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University. The Wayback Machine capture for February 10, 2013 is the last available, but can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/20130210014156/https://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/index.html
-- can you tell I'm goofing off by prowling the Dulcimer Resources: TABS/Books/websites/DVDs?
https://johnsackenheim.com is more "traditional" than "country music." I almost didn't look at it, then decided to peek.
This discussion brought up the dreaded "404 page not found", so I did my own finding via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine (a tool I highly recommend). This went down fairly recently as this was last scanned Nov. 21, 2018. By the way I started with the general website Barb Feick did & it's quite huge, as playing dulcimer was only one of her instruments & one of her interests http://barbfeick.com/
Right now I'm looking for online sources of material, especially tab in preparation for going digital as much as possible. To my dulcimer friends like @ken-hulme & others who believe tab is a crutch, I'm definitely handicapped & need it. Sorry, but my ear lets me goof too often & memory has never been my strength -- Storytelling is best "from the heart & the moment" (although I sometimes have printed references handy), while memory is for acting. (I do community theatre to help exercise it, but don't tend to be "letter perfect.")
Hey everybody, especially @dusty-turtle who said he'd "been looking for this book for years", I thought I'd check to see if anybody was selling it, & found a pdf version online!!! https://www.rivercitydulcimers.com/Randy%20Wilkinson,%20Elizabethan%20Dulcimer.pdf.
See it pays to prowl old discussions.
@Susie Too bad her birthday wasn't 7 April! :)
@Susie Too bad her birthday wasn't 7 April! :)
@Susie You just needed an older sister! haha
@Susie You just needed an older sister! haha
Wow! I asked my husband, Craig Potts, to pick the number and he gave me a good one!
The word phrases were used in an FOTMD discussion, but not a discussion created by the person that posted what I was hunting for, so I should have said it was, as Strumelia suspected, a long comment. I'm not absolutely sure that it was Greg who posted it. He (Greg or someone else) was explaining to someone firstly that the name of a mode is determined by which note falls at the point at which the mode begins, & the key signature note is determined by which note falls at the 3rd fret. At the end of the posted comment he described Parallel Modes and Relative Modes. I'd like to re-read the whole thing.
Thanks SaltSprings! That explains the mystery- the word phrases Anne was searching this site for weren't actually used in that fotmd discussion... but rather they appear on the other site... the site that was linked to by Greg. 
That's why they didn't turn up in any searches of this site.
https://fotmd.com/strumelia/group_discuss/1042/great-resource-for-music-theory-group
Go to the link............tobyrush..........there are charts and the distinction between parallel and relative that Gregg posted.
Anne, I'm not having luck finding those terms either. I also did a search of Greg's activity feed for those terms and had no luck doing that. Not sure what else I can do! Are you positive that it was here on FOTMD that you read that post? I'm thinking that the post was actually a COMMENT on an item like a video maybe, and it's possible that Comments don't show up in search results.
Several month ago I read a post that talked of parallel modes and relative modes. I wanted to re-read it. Thought it may have been a response to someone by Greg Gunner, but am not sure. I've put in the search box both parallel modes and relative modes and neither has brought up the post I'm looking for. How can I find what I'm looking for?
Thanks, Ann
Wow! I asked my husband, Craig Potts, to pick the number and he gave me a good one! I will look forward to having Jessica Comeau's CD! Congratulations to the other winners, too!
Special thanks to Dusty Turtle and Robin Thompson for contributing/donating to the prizes and expenses of the contest. 
Thanks for listening Don and Dusty!
Yes, Rick Scott has tons of songs for children. We spoke to him in 2015 for the podcast. If you'd like to know more about Rick, here's our episode about him called Rick Scott - Canada's Premier Dulcimer Player https://dulcimuse.com/podcast/resource/006.html
WHAT??!!! I won 2nd place! I'm so stunned! THANK YOU! CONGRATS to everybody!
ETA I LOVE MY PRIZE!!!!! Dusty Turtle, I am so excited about your contribution!!!!
My number was 22...oh so close! 
Congrats to all the winners!
Congratulations to all the winners!
Congrats to the winners!!!
My guess (28) was way of the scale :)
Wow! I just squeaked in there!
Thank you & I hope none of us qualify as being Picklepusses
Yay, y'all! The prizes are cool. 
@Strumelia We wouldn't be here if not for you-- yay, FOTMD & Strumelia! 
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone for helping to make FOTMD such a warm and welcoming place for greenhorns and greybeards and eveyyone in between to share our love of this special instrument.
A big Thank You to ALL wonderful members of Friends of the Mountain Dulcimer... for making this site so much FUN and so rewarding to be a part of, for a whole ten years now. 
I especially want to extend a hug to those members who have been here since our first year- how terrific it is that you've been here for so many years of sharing and friendship and support. :)
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To the five contest winners- please send me a private message with your postal address so I can start the process of making sure you receive your PRIZE(s) in the mail !!! 
Here is the chart by which the winners were calculated. The LUCKY NUMBER was 407 .
