One of those days. :(

Did you ever have one of those days when absolutely nothing went right? Yeah, me too, today. :(

I was almost ready to start cutting fret slots. But when I checked my fretboard with a straight edge, it was ever so slightly cupped. My brother, who is the musician in the family, said it if it was a tad bowed, that could still work, but not if it's cupped.

So, tried to use a table belt sander to take a little off the ends to see if we could "flatten" it out. But my fretboard is some very hard cherry maple. The table sander just didn't seem to be doing much. So, today I got out the hand-held belt sander.

Long story short, I took too much off and then trying to fix that, ruined it even more. I can't really see anything to do but start over with a new board. Or maybe I could use the planner to get back to square one, although I think once I took enough off to flatten it again, it would be too thin.

Now I see why everyone keeps building more and more dulcimers - each time, you think how you could do it better.

Oh, well, that's life as a one-time instrument builder. Meeting up with my brother in his wood shop on Thursday. We'll see then what the prognosis is. But I will "make" this cigar box dulcimer! :)