Noisykids Posted September 25, 2021 Share Posted September 25, 2021 i copied and pasted this from another subject on this board. i'm hopefully in the home stretch of finishing a 12/11 hammered dulcimer i made from plans from folkcraft. they no longer support the plans and i've got questions. mostly related to the bridges, the string spacing between each string of each course, and the actual height of the bridges. i made the bridges to exactly the height specified in the plans, 28mm tapering to 22mm, but when i use actual string to mock up the thing, the strings touch the top of the holes in the bridges. if i shim the bridges up, i will still have a taper along the top, but the bridges will be higher. also, i used copies of the plans taped to the pinblocks to lay out all the hitch pin and tuning pin holes, but something doesn't look right. the strings all come off the pins together, no separation. it's as if the holes need to be rotated a bit towards the rear rail, using the hole furthest from the soundboard as a pivot, so that when the the strings come off the pins tangentially, there will be some separation of them. i don't know if under tension the strings won't slide on the delrin side bridges. i bought some brass rods and thought i could very light notch them like a guitar nut to keep them apart and it worked with regular string anyway. i don't have a sacrificial set of metal strings to waste. can anyone walk me through these issues, please? making the bridges By Noisykids,September 4 in Hammered Dulcimer Beginner's Area Share Follow0 Reply to this topic Start new topic Noisykids Members 2 Posted September 4 i started making a hammered dulcimer 6 years ago, got the case made, the top, the bridges, and then got stumped by laying out the holes in the pinblocks. lately i've corresponded with chris at songbird and he told me i should change the bracing from front to back to side to side. those braces sat under the bridges and had a dowel glued to them for support. so i did that then after looking at pictures online i realized i needed to cut openings in the rails to accomodate moveable tone rods so i did that. the router got away from me and did some damage buti was able to repair it. he also said my bridges were incorrect and he's right. i'm making it from plans from folk craft. it's a 12/11. i very carefully made patterns for the pinblock from the plans but it seems to me that the plan may have been drawn smaller and then printed on a plotter because it seems that every little misalignment is magnified. the plan shows the bridges tapering from 29mm to 22mm front to back, and also tapered top to bottom. that particular cut seems difficult to finesse. it would be terrifying to try to run that small piece of wood, with the holes already drilled and just begging for chipout through the table saw. and planing that taper would be problematic with the holes already drilled and i can't wrap my head around drilling them into an already tapered bridge. do i really need to do that top to bottom taper? can i get away with planing the edges of the top to almost meet the groove for the rod? if i have to taper them top to bottom i'm going to glue some pine pieces the bottom of the bridge and make some kind of sled that grips the saw fence so i have some safe control. i've got everything i need to finish this..the motivation, the hitchpins, the tuning pins, the strings. just need to remake the bridges. any advice would be welcome. thanks Quote NoterMan Members 229 Posted September 7 (edited) FWIW -- it would have been better to post this under Building Dulcimers, not under the general topic of Hammered Dulcimer Beginners... I don't normally build HDs, having more than enough fun with the Mountain Dulcemore and other instruments. However if I were to build a Hammered Dulcimer, the plans I would use are those by Randy "Ardie" Davis -- A Dulcimer Builder's Do-It-Yourself Guidebook for the Hobbist. you can find it on Amazon and other places. Several builders who I admire and respect use Ardie's plans with great results. Drill parallel stock, not tapered. Then sand the tapers in with a table or spindle sander or even just a handheld belt sander flipped on it's back. Your experience with a run-away router is exactly why I will never own one or use it for building delicate things like dulcimers. Edited September 7 by NoterMan Quote 3 weeks later... Noisykids Members 2 Author Posted Wednesday at 06:18 PM On 9/7/2021 at 7:40 AM, NoterMan said: FWIW -- it would have been better to post this under Building Dulcimers, not under the general topic of Hammered Dulcimer Beginners... I don't normally build HDs, having more than enough fun with the Mountain Dulcemore and other instruments. However if I were to build a Hammered Dulcimer, the plans I would use are those by Randy "Ardie" Davis -- A Dulcimer Builder's Do-It-Yourself Guidebook for the Hobbist. you can find it on Amazon and other places. Several builders who I admire and respect use Ardie's plans with great results. Drill parallel stock, not tapered. Then sand the tapers in with a table or spindle sander or even just a handheld belt sander flipped on it's back. Your experience with a run-away router is exactly why I will never own one or use it for building delicate things like dulcimers. Expand i've got that book and the patterns for the bridges are the same height, front to back. i got two new bridges built, all the pins are installed, and i've been stringing the thing with actual string so as not to waste sixty dollars worth of metal strings. the sting touches the tops of the holes so i've been shimming them up to move the strings into the center of the holes. another problem i see with the plans is that the tuning pin and hitch pin holes are not offset enough for the strings to go over the side bridges without touching. this is the issue i originally had when trying to lay out the pin blocks, and this is what i got for copying the plans exactly. so i don't really know what to do. will the strings stay separated under tension when run over a delrin rod? i'm wondering if i used a brass rod and slotted it like a nut for a guitar. as far as posting this in another topic, i belong to several astronomy boards and the admins usually move posts for a better fit. i couldn't even find one for building dulcimers. Quote NoterMan Members 229 Posted Wednesday at 07:34 PM The strings should stay put under pressure, you really don't want to notch things, because pressure is downwards not sideways from being plucked. If you post a question in the Building section, my friend Ken Longfield (KWL) is much more knowledgeable than I on building HDs and he'd be happy to help. You might also send him a PM here. The Admin here is not particularly active, unfortunately; we're sort of self-policing. I was very active in the original Everything Dulcimer group 20 years ago or so... The Building Dulcimers section is a bit farther down the the list: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KWL Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 Hi Noisykids. Bridges for hammered dulcimers are difficult. I had the same problem with a set of my bridges and noticed that if I moved the slightly top to bo bottom it helped. Also, the bass bridge (right one) does not need to be in fixed position (side-to-side). I found that moving it one way or the other varied the height of the string going through the hole. I just tuned the strings over the bass bridge to the proper pitch once I had it the best place for strings going through the bridge. The treble bridge needs to be in fixed position because you are tuning both sides of the bridge. I hope this makes sense. If not, you can always email me at: klongfied six nine ( use the numbers not words) at gmail dot com and I'll try to answer any questions you have, Ken "The dulcimer sings a sweet song." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noisykids Posted September 28, 2021 Author Share Posted September 28, 2021 the folkcraft plans specify that the bridges taper 29mm at the rear rail to 22mm at the front rail. but when i built them to those dimensions the strings touched the top of the holes. yesterday i cut and glued some maple strips that are a fat 1/4" to the bottom of the bridges. strings go right through the middle of the holes now. i had a walnut strip on top of the bridges that was grooved for the rods, but i planed them off and glued on new squared up pieces of mahogany so i can basically do everything over again. i found the bridges were too short so i shaped and glued new ends for them. that's the reason for the new mahogany pieces. i'm going to plane them to the indicated dimensions, groove them, and then cut to length. i made a thing called a scratchstock to make the grooves. it's a big screw with the sides of the slot sharpened and screwed into a piece of wood. once i get the groove established i finish it off with the tip of a half round file. i've put too much time into this to just put it away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoterMan Posted September 29, 2021 Share Posted September 29, 2021 Sounds like a reasonable solution! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KWL Posted September 29, 2021 Share Posted September 29, 2021 It sounds like you found a good solution for your problem. Keep at it. I'm sure you will be pleased with the final outcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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