Hammered dulcimer cigar box project

Hi everyone :-)

Does anybody know where I can find plans for building a hammered dulcimer ?
Has that kind of project already been built with cigar boxes ?
It does not need to be a complex one, building a simple one at first will be
a good start...

Hammered dulcimer are usually quite expensive, maybe we could find a way
to build a nice and cheap one ? So, anyone with experience, plans, videos lessons
and everything that could help please join :D

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Outhouse Instruments on June 28, 2010 at 12:28am

Google is your friend, but you'll have to sift thru a lot of crud to find a good, usable, free plan.
I seem to remember seeinf a pretty good one on mother earth.

Matt

Permalink Reply by LittleBigOne on June 28, 2010 at 12:44am

Hi Matt, ok let me know if you remember the link one day :-)

Hi Randy, yes I knew about www.harpkit.com and they also have a mini hammered dulcimer
complete hardware for $34 (Full size blueprint and complete assembly instructions are $25 more)

But I hope to find plans for free somewhere so I can try to build a cheap one all by
myself :-) You're right 8 strings could be good for a test model.

The mini from music-makers kits
has 9 bridges, but the thing I don't understand so far is how they do the maths to have 2 octaves and
specially they have four notes on the right (starting bottom string) then four notes on the left
then again four notes on the right for the next octave, and then four notes on the left...
I understand they place two strings on each bridge, but I'm pretty sure there is a trick about the lengths
of the strings and the gauge of the strings :-S

Permalink Reply by Alan Roberts on June 28, 2010 at 4:58am