Re: dulcimer building
It sounded great and my mother loves it. She has another one, all walnut like the one you favor about 20 years old someone made for her with the curl-neck style. The different woods are definately going to change the sound somewhat, but not in a negative way. Every wood or stringed intrument will have a distint sound of its own and it will always mellow with age if maintained properly. I like it so much I told her I wanted to keep it myself, so she gave me her old one to make me happy. When she came back to visit this summer asked for it back because she loves the sound of it better. She said that she still likes the sound of the one I made, but I think the sound is not as deep as the older one. The older one does not have nearly as good (frett to string) action as the newer one I made ( my opinion), but she likes the sound better for certain songs. <br /><br />Yes the fretboard and fret grooves (and depth) was completely cut.<br /><br />Yes the beeze wax protects and shine. So does the tonge oil to a degree but the wax just blows it away....I refinished a Ovation guitar about 20 years ago and I could never achieve the factory finish...I would come so close but always have a few bubbles here and there otherwise it was beautiful. So having alot of time on my hands and alot of determination I re-sanded and re-appied the clear polyeurethanded(sp) at least 5 times with more and more bubbles each time. <br /><br />Now I have a few antiques that I plan on strip- wash and redo the same way as the dulcemer. no more with the clear coats of anything. <br /><br />The top side of the fret board should be slightly convex or bowed/curved up in the center. If it is bowed in the other direction (concave) then the action of the strings will be fuzzy/buzzy poor if you can stike at note at all. The instructions will go into graeter detail. Remember, strings are going to pull accross this board. Idealy, you want it to be minutetly convex across the top same as a guitar. If it goes concave, the action goes from bad to worse depending how bad it is. Dont worry. It its too convex, its as easy fix by sanding the frets down a little when you do the finishing touches before stringing.<br /><br />It wasnt really that hard but I was under alot of stress to complete something I promised and it not become a wall hanging. <br /><br />I dont remenber what the kit name was but I'll get it from momma and pass it to you asap.( day or two)
