John's given you good advice. Just make sure any wax you use is silicone free. You can call McSpadden and ask them what they would do. Just do a search for The Dulcimer Shoppe or McSpaden and you will find the phone number. BTW, the obvious way to tell that you have four string rather than six string dulcimer is that you have only four tuning machines on the headstock. The FM12W is a nice instrument. Enjoy playing it.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Best wishes with your new to you McSpadden. I know you will enjoy it a great deal.

Hello!  Welcome to this site!  We're happy to help you out with your questions about your McSpadden dulcimer.

Regarding the light scratches on your fretboard, you could use some liquid wax polish on the entire top surface, applied with some fine (000) steel wool, let dry then buff off the wax. This would also shine the frets at the same time!

The wood is black walnut, and everything but the top, bottom and sides should be solid wood all the way through. Light sanding should be OK.  McSpadden didn't stain any parts-- it's all clear lacquer finish on the walnut.

Adding strap buttons is as easy as you say. I would center the tail button under the endpins.  Drill a pilot hole for the screw in the tailblock, put a dab of soap or wax on the point of the screw, and attach the button. The top button can be attached to the heel of the peghead, either at the end or on the right side. This is a solid block of walnut.

These McSpadden dulcimers always had 4 strings. The six slots are there in the nut and bridge to allow for two different stringing configurations: In the equidistant string set-up, you set the first melody string in Slot 1, the bass string in Slot 6, and put the other two strings in Slots 3 and 5.  In the double-melody set-up, you put the first and second melody strings in Slots 1 and 2, the bass string in Slot 6, and the last string in Slot 4.  So you play the first 2 melody strings as one string.

Have fun!

Hi All -

I'm new to the mountain dulcimer and recently got a great deal on a McSpadden FM12W from 1996. It sounds beautiful but I have some questions I hope folks here can help me with.

There's some minor scratches at one point on the fret board ( picture attached ) where a previous player maybe focused an unusual amount of attention.  It's not too deep but noticeable.  Would some combination of sanding / oil help polish it away? 

Looking at the wood, I think it's mahogany, but I'm not sure. Does that look correct and does there appear to be some other finish / staining that I'd destroy if I sanded it? I can't tell just by looking at it, but I'm hoping that someone with more experience would be able to look at the attached photos and know.

All this is strictly cosmetic, so not critical to address, but I'd like to take the best care of it that I can.

It would be helpful to add strap buttons. Is that safe to do? I'm not much of a woodworker, but it seems simple enough. Drill a pilot hole and then screw them in. Is it more complicated than that? Any advice would be appreciated.

Finally, while this is a four string, the nut has slots for six. There are even six grooves in the bridge and tail block. I'm guessing they manufactured those parts for either  four or six string instruments and so that's why they're there, but I was curious if there was some way to string this with six that I was missing.