October 15. I washed my hands and dusted them with talcum powder. I stretched a tape measure across a long piece of plywood, drew out all the strings stuffed into the hole for #5 gauge. Measured and labeled each of the #5 strings. Then emptied the next hole and measured and labelled the #6's. As I started on the 7's I took a quick look at my measurements against my list of string requirements. Hey... wait a minute...

I formed DC's conjecture:

"Let S(g) be the length of the shortest string of each gauge g. Let L(g) be the length of the longest string required in each g. For every g, S(g) is greater than L(g)."

If the conjecture was true, I didn't need to measure the strings individually because the conjecture implied that any string of the proper gauge would be long enough for any course requiring that gauge. It would suffice to prove DC's conjecture if by measurement the shortest string in each hole was found to be longer than the longest string required of the corresponding gauge.

l looked up the longest "7S" string needed. Measured the shortest "7S" on hand. The conjecture was true for g=7S. Likewise for g=7L, for g=8S., etc. for all (g) less than or equal to 11. Specifically, the conjecture was true for all g residing in my basement.

And so in fifteen minutes I had finished what I had allowed an hour and a half to accomplish.

The immediate result is that I am still waiting for the glue holding the bridge caps on the bridges to dry before actually putting a string on the dulcimer.

One way the instrument could fail would be for the treble bridge cap to be pulled or knocked off the less secure end of its track atop the treble bridge (recall my accident with that bridge which left one end a bit, uhm, "suboptimal"). I decided to glue it in place rather than rely on string pressure to hold the bridge cap on. I glued both caps because what's good for the goose is good for the bass. I wrapped the assemblies in rubber bands to apply pressure while the glue dries. Thank goodness Titebond-II is fast. Fast-ish anyway.

At 11:00 AM, I started stringing. I asked Amy to play some music upstairs so I could enjoy it in the basement. Partly true; also I wanted to disguise whatever sounds of tuning came from down below. She picked a random mix of Tim O'Brien off the iPod. Nice.

The first string took me 20 minutes. I found four ways to do it wrong. I am sure there are others. The day is young. At this pace, 87 strings will take 30 hours. As expected, practice makes swifter. I strung the bottom two treble courses, then the fifth treble course which includes concert A. Then a couple of the top courses. That let me adjust the placement of the treble bridge to get the interval of fifths across the bridge. It is magic to tune on one side of the bridge and get for your trouble two notes exactly one fifth apart (both flat or sharp, perhaps, but exactly one fifth...). I did six or seven treble courses and then did the top and bottom bass courses so that I could get the top/bottom spacing of both bridges set. Then I realized that it made no sense for there to be a scale marker on the top bass course. That could only mean... Upstairs to check photos. Yes, geez, I have the bass bridge cap glued on backward. And no, you can't just turn the bridge around, even if a lot of wire wasn't passing through it. With a pocket knife I broke the setting glue free and whittled off the bits that had hardened. Reversed the bridge cap, cleaned it up some more, and went back to it. Whew. The notch in the bass bridge is very secure, so this doesn't particularly worry me.

At 2:00, I took a break to work with Amy and with Becky of the garden club who came out to help with the yard. Dug 20 holes for bulbs, mowed where light cords will go, mowed the top of the driveway (may have busted the lawnmower in the process; I hate lawn machinery). At 4:45, I took a Killians Red downstairs and went back to stringing. This is supposed to be tedious, but it is not. That is how much I despise lawn work. I am, however, damned tired of bloodying myself on the sharp ends of the smaller gauge wires. Knocked off for a while about 5:30. After three hours, forty five minutes I am eleven twenty-ninths finished.

After supper, another hour, another four courses. 4.75 hours, 15/29ths. RD says to expect to spend 8-12 hours stringing dulcimer #1. He's dead on.

Still later that same day... Couldn't leave it alone. 19/29ths after one more hour. That's 15 minutes per course with ten to go. Two and one half hours. Then I can start tuning. Need to turn a dowel for the backstand, too. Nothing fancy (yet).

 

 

String lab. The red stains are Resorcinol. They only
look and feel like blood.

 

One down, 86 to go.

 

Knocking off for a while with 11/29ths done. Done for
the day at 15/29ths. Alright then, a few more: 19/29ths.
Couple of hours tomorrow will do it.

 

You're on page 11

Building: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Refinements, etc: 16 17 18 19