Hi Barb!

Yes, I was very careless and didn't hydrating my instruments. Dulcimer was here for 3 years and we had dry air all this time, but this winter became crucial for dulcimer :( It's a good lesson for me.

Thanks for bringing up this topic. This winter in Western Pennsylvania has been a tough one on wooden instruments. One inexpensive little guitar with a very thin top developed 3 cracks and the whole top started to sink. I thought it was toast but my guitar tech just laughed and advised me to aggressively hydrate it and then glue the remaining cracks. I was dubious but it is actually working and I haven't even glued them yet!

Moral of this story is believe what they all say about hydrating your instruments and never give up without giving it a try. As my tech says, "The trees just want to go back to the forest!"

Barb

Thank you very much for your quick answers! I was very sad and I feel much better now. I showed your advices to my luthier friend and he'll do as you say.

Volha, you have been given excellent advice!  

I have a cherry dulcimer made by Rodney Hensley that looks just like yours and it, too, sounds wonderful. 

Hot hide glue and fiddle clamps, let sit over night. Clean it up the next morning with a warm wet cloth and go back to playin'!

DAN

www.dulcimore.com

I agree with John, and might even do a 'pre-clamp' for practice.  That would help you also be sure you have a sufficient number of clamps; keeping your clamps as close as possible to avoid 'unclamped' areas.

Volha, that's a very beautiful dulcimer!  And a very big crack, too!

If the wood is still all there, it can be glued with Franklin Titebond wood glue (or a similar woodworking glue) and clamped well.  It shouldn't be a difficult repair to accomplish, even though it looks very bad right now.

Hope it goes well with you and you once again have a wonderful instrument!  Happy Easter.

Hi guys,
I have one great sounding dulcimer of Rodney Hensley made of cherrywood and it got some cracks on the side. As I see, this one was construted without kerfing.

I have a friend who is guitar luthier, he has no experience of dulcimer repairment but has the tools and experience of woodworking and electric guitars making.
Extremely need your advise - what operations he has to do to fix the cracks and which glue to use better for this operation not to loose this great sound.
Side is little bit going out of the body shape in the crack place.

Mr. Hensley's site is down and I can't ask him directly for advice.

Thanks in advance, Volha

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