Homemade dulcimer from three cigar boxes (except fretboard)

Over the years, I have been picking up a few cigar boxes at antique stores - not really collecting but just like them.  Last year, I got the "walking dulcimer" bug and that led to researching standard dulcimers and cigar box guitars.  I finally felt like I wanted focus on dulcimers, but did not want to spend much money initially had a thought that I could combined my interests in boxes make my own simple cigar box dulcimer.  I found enough online resources (here and other sites like Banjolemonade's and Backyard Music's site) to complete it.

From my cigar box guitar research, I knew that I needed a certain size box and found one at a shop on our Labor Day weekend trip and then bought two more that looked identical from Etsy and eBay.  All three are from the 1960's era cigar brand with no external paper lable - just wood. Then I found out where I could buy the fretboard\tuner\strings as a kit and after too much mental waffling decided on fully chromatic.

So, now that I had my supplies, I next focused on the boxes by removing as much wood from the inside connection surfaces as possible, but still allowing for a gluable joint.  I felt that this was important to allow for as much air flow as possible for the most sound generation.  Then I used original side support wooden sections to reinforce the bottoms and side to bottom transitions.  Also had to figure out how to anchor the strings without distressing the thin top. Then I glued the boxes and their lids together, sanded, drilled sound port holes (after testing on a spare piece of wood), stained the fretboard, varnished the body.








After that, I added the tuners and strings!

Here is a link to my YouTube Short for how it sounds:
https://youtube.com/shorts/KNXFF_BihMo?feature=share

Keep in mind that I am not a performer, but wanted to share a sound sample.