Dulcimers and Weissenborns

[Paul Henneberry]

Hi,
I have only ever made ukes but late last year I decided to try something different in 2020. I usually build in batches of 4 but couldn’t decide whether to make some dulcimers or weissenborns and eventually settled on a plan to make 2 of each.
The dulcimer idea came from listening to Joni Mitchells album Blue too many times lately. I was all set to make a normal mountain dulcimer when I stumbled onto a youtube concert from 1983 of Joni playing at Wembley Stadium. She was playing a really unusual and to my eye very beautiful dulcimer and I decided that this was the type of dulcimer that I wanted to make. Lots of research later I found out it was made by a Californian luthier called Philip Kubicki (later of the Factor Bass Company) for Joni as a one off special in the early 80’s. I then found out he later made another for a lady in California and as far as I can find out that was it. I was lucky enough to get hold of one photo of each instrument and put together some plans scaled from the pictures. One copies the materials of the original (mahogany, sitka, ebony) and the other is all Aussie timbers (Aus red cedar, Aus blackwood, mulga). The scale length is 24”.
I can’t remember why I decided to break with convention and make the weissenborns as 4 strings but it probably seemed like a good idea at the time. I’m calling them tenor weissenborns and I based them on the plans put together by Terry Bluddell but scaled down about 20%. They have a scale length of 21” and follow the same timber combinations as the dulcimers. Loud and lots of sustain but I haven’t got anything to compare them with. They are all finished with miratone 5555 2 pack poly. They also have gotoh SGi510 mini guitar tuners which I think are superb.
Cheers
Paul

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[Mark McLean]

Paul, they look sensational. I too have had a mind to make a Joni inspired dulcimer but I don't know anything about them and have no clue where to start. Yours are beautiful - I especially like the red cedar one. Do you have any build pictures, like the bracing and so on. You are really making me want to give it a go at some stage.

[ozziebluesman]

Hi Paul,
They are all beautiful instruments. I have built many weissenborn copies but never thought to build a four string. I agree with Mark the Red Cedar Dulcimer. I would be interested what is inside the box especially the Dulcimer. Thanks for sharing the pics they are simply outstanding stringed instruments.
Cheers
Alan

[Paul Henneberry]

Hi Mark and Alan, thanks for the kind words.
I didn't have any idea what sort of bracing was in the original dulcimer but I did some research into bracing patterns as used in the instrument that most resembles this structure which was a flat top mandolin. I found the Gilchrist page about the types of bracing he uses and the sounds they are responsible for which led to using an X brace. This was an easy pick because it is what I use in my ukes. I started making ukes about 6 years ago and soon started making and deflection testing a carbon fibre sheet / spruce three ply laminate brace. I use it on everything now. I also use carbon fibre sheet as the bridge patch.
The weissenborn's are braced the same as the Bluddell plan but with my CF laminate. It looked very overbraced but there is plenty of volume and sustain so it must be OK.
cheers Paul

[56nortondomy]

Nice work Paul, they look great well done. Wayne

[nkforster]

Really nice dulcimer design Paul. Did you laminate the bwb to the plastic tortoise binding yourself?

[Paul Henneberry]

Hi Nigel,
Yes, I buy the celluloid from ebay and the 020th fibre veneer sheet from RC tonewoods. I actually only do BW not BWB because I recon the white behind the tortoise shell brings out the colours better. I start by gluing full sheets of black and white fibre veneer sheet together with cyanoacrylate and then glue a wide side of the celluloid binding strip onto the white side with cyanoacrylate. I cut this off the sheet and then glue the edge face of the celluloid onto the white side of the fibre sheet with cyanoacrylate and cut it off. This wraps 2 sides of the celluloid in BW with the black side facing out. This is still flexible enough to cold bend and glue into the body rebate. I use titebond original to glue the binding with the fibre attached into the rebate. Doing it this way I have never had any problems with the narrow edge of the fibre delaminating or crinkling during cold bending.

Here should be a link to a post on my uke making blog site about the full process.

https://jarrahdalestringinstrumentcompa ... s-binding/

The link is a few years old when I used 010” fibre sheet, I’ve moved onto using 020”. I think the stuff in the picture below wasn't called tortoise but was called fire or flame.

Scraping this stuff down is my favourite bit of the whole build process.

Here is a better pic of the binding on one of my ukes.

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Paul

[nkforster]

Superb.

Are you spraying the bridges too? Are the fixed bridges sprayed on or off the body?

[Paul Henneberry]

Hi Nigel,
yes, I spray my bridges with rattle can satin. I spray and fully buff the soundboards without bothering to mask the bridge pad. I then route off the poly where the bridge will be glued down with a dremel in one of those stewmac bases. Seems to make a tidy result. I'm still new to all this and am usually making it up as I go.

How do you do it?

cheers

Paul

[nkforster]

Nothing ususual, I mask off, cut with a knife and peel it off. I polish the bridge to satin, apply a little epoxy, rub off and wax. Then I cover the think in frog tape and glue on. Remove the frog tape and clean up any scuffs, rewax. Done.