Found a Lovely Old Diatonic MD

A fiddle playing friend of mine gave me a call today and said he had been clearing out his uncle's house and found a load of old instruments, mainly lap harps, but there was also a dulcimer. It is in a pretty sorry state but I'm sure she will clean up into a lovely instrument.

I tuned the strings up as far as I thought I safely could and had a had a little play - she is lovely!!!

http://www.plunder.com/Robin-s-Uncle-s-MD-mp3-download-0922d951b8.htm

With a careful clean up, some work on the tuning pegs and new strings she is going to be a wonderful instrument.

She has a very, very light build and I think a hollow fretboard. The scale length is 28". The top is solid spruce and the back and sides solid mahogany - all very thinly cut and lightly braced. The frets seem accurate although the rusty strings were tripping up my noter and causing rattles! We think that she was made in the 1960s by my friend's uncle who was a woodwork teacher in the UK.

Robin