I step up the tempo and aim to take a month off the projected debut date. Let's get this thing done!

 

October 8. Change of plans! Aim for October 17. Accessorizing the instrument will provide easy birthday and Christmas gift answers. I cleaned up the 3/8 x 2-3/4 x 27 maple stick with the idea of making treble and bass bridges from it, but I think the remnants of cherry are just long enough to let me build all four bridges from that wood as originally planned. It will be much softer to work. Sanded the interior, verified that the outside of the pin blocks remains at least slightly amenable to surface mods.

October 9. Happy birthday, Mom.

I cut shims to go under the bridge braces because somehow the braces came out too short to insure good contact between the back- and soundboards. I used the same wood the backboard is cut from and I cut the shims slightly narrower than the braces.

The long maple remnant was barely wide enough to rip into blanks for the bass and treble bridges (yes, I go back and forth about the color scheme, hence about the choice of wood for the bridges). Each bridge is 1/8 to 3/16-inch shorter (soundboard to top) than the plans call for. Maybe this will matter less because I aim to use a slightly larger bridge cap on the treble bridge and a bridge cap on the bass bridge where none is called for. In each case, that should raise the strings back to about what RD specifies.

I can fall back to cherry if maple proves too hard to work -- those angled holes for the bass bridge worry me.

October 10. Up at 5:00 to put in 4 hours and change on various web projects, trying to get ahead a little so I can spend some time tomorrow on Big Steps. Then to Blowing Rock. Stopped at Lowes for the penultimate batch of supplies (discovered late that I'm going to need some wood putty, damn it, for the rail joints). Good day in Blowing Rock; great color up there already. Hard blue skies. Kept away from the Martin House which sells dulcimers and dulcimer-related goods because I want this instrument to remain my idea. On return from the mountain, I assualted the rails and pinblock glue sides with #40 sanding pads on the repaired orbital sander. Reduced the rails to flush with the pinblocks; re-ripped the side rails to match; will sand everything after attachment. Bought some clearance on the glue side of the pin blocks to be sure nothing is holding the rails apart from their corner joints (which naturally need all the help they can get).

I glued the right rail on using Titebond-II rather than Resorcinol since it's not a structural part of the instrument and because Titebond-II is so easy to use by comparison. Clamped the right rail for an hour and change during dinner, then glued and clamped the left rail. Set the dulcimer up so that its weight holds the right rail while I clamped the left. Misted the inside and the back of the backboard with Deft Semigloss. Applied a second coat late, then redistributed clamps so that I can leave both rails clamped overnight, although neither is clamped as well as when the glue was fresh and in dire need of clamping.

We're ready for measurements, cutting out the soundboard, calculating the placement of and glueing in the bridge braces.

Changed the ShopVac bag for the first time ever. Geez, was it overdue! It accounted for 2/3rds the weight of the ShopVac. Then made a feint at cleaning up the work area.

 

 

Braces, glued up dulcimer frame, awaiting
meaurements, stain, and general cleanup inside; braces are
just placed in for fit at the moment, not glued.

 

 

Glued the right rail on, then the left rail (which is shown
clamped here) and misted the inside of the dulcimer
and back of the backboard with the first
coat of Deft semi-gloss.

You're on page 6

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