What kind of pegs do you have?. Are they wood violin or metal type with screw in the end. The metal type can be replaced with new ones for under $30. Robert
I've always found slipping wooden pegs to be nicely cured with a minor treatment of Peg Drops liquid. You can't lose anything by trying it out before opting to completely change to geared pegs.
Wood pegs tend to slip more in the Winter dry indoor weather. The Peg Drops liquid is made with rosin and provides a nice even very thin film of 'grip'- makes tuning/moving them smoother, and pegs then will hold. You need to unwind the string and remove each peg in turn, put 2 or 3 (no more than that!) drops and evenly turn the peg in place to spread where the peg touches against the wood. Then restring the string, tune up with a little less tension than usual, and let the drops 'cure' overnight before tuning up to normal.
Just bear in mind that if you alter McSpadden's design and you want to sell the dulcimer later, the modification may affect the value of the dulcimer.
Follow Steve's advice. A problem in the late Fall and winter is a lower humidity which causes the scroll walls (sides) to shrink a little. This causes the peg to slip. Tightening the screw in the peg button should take care of it. Should you choose to replace the friction pegs with geared tuners, that can be done. Depending upon the type of tuners you choose you may need to enlarge the holes for the tuners.
Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."
If really want to replace the pegs not just tighten them, Gotoh, Five Star and Schaller are well known brands of tuning machine makers. Stewart-MacDonald (stewmac) has quite a variety for sale at a range of prices. Don't look just for Dulcimer tuning machines, individual guitar tuners (either open geared or closed) work just fine.
i own a McSpadden with friction pegs that continue to slip. The dulcimer has a scroll head. Any recommendations on replacement tuning pegs?
People get nervous and distracted when recording themselves, and might speed up or slow down without realizing it. A metronome program can help during recording, especially if you can set it to light blinks only... so you don't wind up recording the sound of the metronome as well! 
...It's not the only way to strum but I think it's the best FIRST way to strum: ALTERNATE STRUMMING. The exceptions come next.
Stephen can you elaborate on this? I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'alternate strumming' and 'exceptions'... sounds intriguing!
Myself, I tend to keep my strumming motions going even when not hitting the strings.. and I don't usually like it much when players slowly speed up tunes ...maybe I'm old fashioned or something, but it feels vaguely 'disturbing' to me somehow. 
Adrian, I can only compare my McCafferty with the other fine dulcimers I own: Blue Lion, Modern Mountain Dulcimers, and Probst, the latter of which I currently have strung as a baritone.
My 25" McCafferty has a superior balance, very warm tone, and exceptional volume. It is not as bass dominant as my Modern Mountain Dulcimer, but is better balanced. Compared to my Probst, the McCafferty does not have as much sustain, but don't get me wrong; the sustain is very good, just not quite as infinite as the Probst. And the sustain might be a function of the shorter VSL. I have a feeling that the sustain of a 28" McCafferty would be just as remarkable as the Probst.
The action is also wonderful. It takes very little pressure from your fingers to fret a string. I also find it equally beautiful flatpicked or fingerpicked. Prior to buying the McCafferty, I used my MMD for flatpicking and my Blue Lion for fingerpicking, but the McCafferty excels in both. However, I found the strings a bit too far apart for fast flatpicking and moved the melody and bass strings in a little bit so that they are about 1" apart.
I don't know much about electronics, but I love the pickup Terry uses. It is a Twin Spot pickup by K & K Sound. I plug right into my Fishman Loudbox mini with no pre-amp and no equalizer and the sound is just what you'd want: an amplified but warm, acoustic tone.
I bought my McCafferty before Terry started making radiused fretboards, so I can't speak to that feature.
In general, I cannot imagine a competent player looking for a high-end dulcimer with a big, round, warm sound being dissatisfied with a McCafferty instrument. There might be a detail or two (such as the distance between strings) that would have to be customized, but Terry knows what he's doing. His dulcimers are really nice. Two members of my local dulcimer group contacted him for their own the first time they heard mine. A few days after I received my dulcimer from Terry I played in a kind of round robin on a stage with three other dulcimer players. We took turns playing tunes. Afterwards, a professional player in the audience (he was actually the main act who followed us) told me that the tone of my dulcimer really stood out among the others. He didn't say my playing stood out, but was only talking about the tone of the dulcimer!
I use something called Metronome Beats. It can be programmed in any number of ways. I particularly like the visual display options.
Adrian, there is no way to really answer that question. I have a McCafferty dulcimer and love it. Obviously, it was worth it to me. But I don't know how anyone can quantify the variables that add value to a dulcimer. Sound is one issue. So is comfort. And the visual appeal might be another factor.
My advice would be that if you have to ask if it's worth it, you should probably play for a while before making an investment in your dream dulcimer. With a McCafferty dulcimer you are paying for some variables that might not be important to you. Do you want an ebony overlay on the fretboard? That adds significant cost. Do you want an internal pickup? Do you want a radiused fretboard? Those options probably amount to a third or so of the cost of the instrument. If you don't want those, then you should not buy a dulcimer with them. If you don't know if you want those options, then wait.
It took me several years of playing to determine my own preferences. If you are a beginner or have only played a couple of dulcimers, I would suggest not even thinking about spending more than a few hundred dollars for a dulcimer until you have played long enough to know exactly what you want. (That is, unless you have loads of cash. If you have loads of cash, go ahead and buy a McCafferty. In fact, buy two, and send me one! And I'll take a David Beede dulcimer, too, while you're at it. 
)
Seriously, though, there is no rush. Attend some dulcimer festivals and pay attention to the dulcimers that sound good to you. Ask if you can try them. You will have the opportunity to try some nice dulcimers and you'll have a better sense of how they differ, what your personal preferences are, and what dulcimers might be best for you.
And don't forget to check the For Sale forum here. McCafferty has sold a lot of dulcimers over the past couple of years. I bet we start seeing a few used.
If your strumming motions aren't moving to the beat and it's subdivisions when you're NOT hitting the strings, you can end up dragging or rushing. Must people that strum like this rush. It's not the only way to strum but I think it's the best FIRST way to strum: ALTERNATE STRUMMING. The exceptions come next.
I love TIME GURU. According to your settings, it can randomly mute some of the metronome clicks which trains you to maintain your own pulse.
Terry McCafferty is selling radius capos.
Here is the full story, as written for the UK Nonsuch News. As you say, I could certainly imagine Marc playing dulcimer.
Nick Odell Dulcimers
In July I bought yet another dulcimer on eBay. You would think I would know better by now, but no. It was hand made by one Nick Odell. When it arrived it was apparent that it had a very short scale length, just less than 23”. Had I known this I would not have bid for it. I contacted the vendor who said he was a guitarist and had received it as a birthday present a few years ago, and having never seen another dulcimer had no idea they normally had a longer scale length. I fully accepted this. It was tuned approximately to DAD but the strings were quite loose in that tuning so I retuned it to DDG which worked well. But it still felt too small for me. It was very well made, though the finish wasn’t great. I know some people like smaller dulcimers so I thought I would enquire if Geoff Black either knew anything about the maker or might be interested in finding it a home. Geoff replied that he knew nothing of the maker other than that he had been Marc Bolan’s guitar repair man in the early 1970s, a repair label signed by him in July 1972 being recently used as provenance for a Gibson Les Paul which was supposedly owned by Marc, and had come up for auction. It is well known that Marc’s house was ransacked immediately after his death and all his guitars were stolen, many of which have since re-appeared at auction. A germ of an idea began; could my dulcimer perhaps have been owned, built for, or even just been played by Bolan?
Enquiries to Bolan fan sites revealed nothing but a thread on Mudcat led to my being able to contact Nick himself. He explained the dulcimer had nothing whatsoever to do with Marc. “I was a senior repairman in Gibson's UK operation, Bolan was a Gibson endorsee, his Gibson guitars came back to the workshops for servicing as per the endorsement agreement and I was the chap who did them.” Oh well!
The dulcimers date from the mid-1980s. “I designed the instrument primarily as a kit which I manufactured and sold from my shop/workshop in Outwell, near Wisbech. Whilst I designed the dulcimer with the same attention I gave to my other instruments my primary motive was to produce a kit to put in my shop window. The village where I lived had narrowboat moorings and boaters as well as musicians used to call in. Some of the things in my shop were aimed at the boaters and the dulcimer kit was intended to be not too expensive for an impulse buy, not too much of a challenge for an amateur to build and to give finished results they could be proud of and enjoy playing. It came with a plan and instructions. I built a few of them myself and sold them as complete instruments. If yours is one of those it will have my label and the completion date was the serial number read backwards.”
My model does have a label but it is so far inside the sound-hole I haven’t been able to read the date. My model also has a brass nut and a brass bridge, plus downward-facing tuners which are obviously a mandolin four-on-a-plate set cut in half! Readers with an interest in electric guitars may remember the 80s fad for brass nuts and bridge fittings on electric and sometimes even acoustic guitars which was intended to increase sustain. I asked Nick why he chose the shorter scale length.
“Scale length was partly based on the standard-sized boxes I bought to ship them in (yes, really) and partly on preference for the tone banjo strings produced on an all-mahogany body strung at a lower tension. The original machine heads were individual one-on-a-plate with two screw holes which came from the wholesaler described as banjo tuners. If I built it you should find evidence of the original screw holes under the plate. And the original bridge and nut were - I think - plastic but could have been bone but definitely not brass.”
He kindly sent me a copy of the blueprint that came with the kit. It shows that the sides were pre-bent and also that the purchaser had to cut their own sound-holes. The suggested tuning was CC-G-C.
Nick latterly worked for the schools music service in Huddersfield, West Yorks. and built a few more of his own instruments during that period. He retired in 2017. He appears in an online video made by Fenland District Council intended to promote local industries. It is called “Small Firms in Fenland” and is found on Daily Motion. Nick is featured about nine minutes in and is shown in his workshop.
Grahame Hood
Hey, Fodderwing!
For years, we had a crippled doe in our neck of the woods-- one of her hooves was turned under and she hobbled along on that first joint. She lived a long time and I don't know what became of her.
Check your messages. [Hover over your name, upper right]
Hi Jamie. Welcome to the wonderful world of FOTMD. If you stick around a while, you will make many new friends here.
Literally just got my dulcimer yesterday and then read the decidedly lukewarm opine of Roosebeck instruments but what's done is done. Anyone want to donate a dulcimer to someone that made a mistake?
Don't let anyone tell you your first dulcimer purchase was a mistake no matter the brand. I played the first seven years on a $100 kit with friction pegs. I wrote many of my tunes on that dulcimer and I performed with it at the World's Fair in 1986 and the Seattle Folklife festival.
If you play a little bit everyday you will get better regardless of the instrument. Can you find a better instrument? Absolutely! You can spend $4000 on a dulcimer but you will not learn any faster.
You are about to discover that every dulcimer you purchase or build from here on will never be enough. 
Welcome StringHopper and TwoGunBob!
(..I'm a secret HP Lovecraft fan myself)
Well heck... Firstly I'm not a Bob but a Jamie. TGB was my internet handle from way back that came from being a Robert E. Howard fan (creator of Conan) as H.P. Lovecraft called him Two Gun Bob and I adopted the moniker and all. Literally just got my dulcimer yesterday and then read the decidedly lukewarm opine of Roosebeck instruments but what's done is done. Anyone want to donate a dulcimer to someone that made a mistake? All said I sat down learning The Water is Wide and muddled through. If anything the challenge is getting those hand positions which are different from bass AND different from the balalaika. At least the balalaika prepped me for using my thumb so there's that.
I've played electric bass guitar for around 31 years. Rolling the clock back to being young and rebellious...
And then there was this stint doing cow punk...
And at the same time STILL playing angry music...
All that folded up about ten years ago and I pretty much just tinkered on the bass and got bored so picked up the balalaika last year to try my hand at Russian folk music. After a year I decided to branch out again and ordered the dulcimer and joined here as I really miss being a part of a musical community. I appreciate the warm welcomes so far and look forward to getting stuck in with yet another new instrument.
Let's see... In the last ten years I spend a lot of my time when not working painting figures for wargaming. The gaming is mostly to justify painting as that relaxes me even more than playing music. Honestly, when I'm not in a band playing live I kind of get depressed about the music thing. right now I'm working on an American Civil War project, probably what ignited the interest in the dulcimer.
Also done a plethora of fantasy/sci fi stuff over the years.
And that's about it for the moment. Look forward to getting to know this community and learning about yet another instrument.
KenH already told you what I would tell you. Have fun putting it together. The kit makes a very nice dulcimer. Take your time. Don't hurry your work. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."
Thanks Lisa, for all you do for the dulcimer world! 
This is Fodderwing. She is an orphan who's mom was hit by a car. Not my pet but comes up to the back porch to visit occasionally. She actually came over to greet a deer hunter who hunts my farm!. The guy was dumbfounded to see this deer following him around. To cute to shoot.... Robert
Hi everyone! I am finally getting the time to get on to this forum, I am coming in from the old Everything Dulcimer forum (Asterhunter). My wife Sharon and I play and practice a lot together, and play in public every once in a while. We have a fairly active YouTube channel, one of our latest is here:
I'm sure I'll find some old friends here!
David Elosser
I'd like to say that Ken's two articles have stood the test of time and are regularly inquired about by beginners. Since the demise of EverythingDulcimer .com, along with its go-to collection of articles, I've noticed that folks do continue asking about where to find Ken's articles. Finding these kinds of resources on random Facebook groups is next to impossible.
Thus, it makes sense to have these be more easily located on FOTMD than they were in the past.
Thanks Ken for your efforts in writing them and in helping out dulcimer beginners over the years.
Ask and ye shall receive.
I've replaced the old pdf in that thread with the revised PDF that gives the correct octave in the tuning instructions.
Here's the link to it in FOTMD's Resources forum, and I pinned it to the top position:
And I also put one in the Beginner's Group, here:
https://fotmd.com/strumelia/group_discuss/2316/ken-hulmes-i-just-got-a-dulcimer-now-what-article
Additionally, I pinned Ken's "Get Noterized" article thread to the top of the Traditional Playing Style Forum, here:
AND I put another thread with the Get Noterized article in the Old Style Noter Drone GROUP, here:
https://fotmd.com/strumelia/group_discuss/2317/ken-hulmes-get-noterized-article
The original balalaika was a diatonic fretted instrument, but that changed, IIRC, in the mid- late-1800s. If you can find a diatonic one, hang on to it!
Here's the current, corrected version...
The version that Lisa mentions is stored here under Dulcimer Resources, and I can't delete it, or replace with the correct version.
I Just Got A.pdf - 1MB