Dulcimers and Weissenborns
Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2020 8:49 pm
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
.
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
.