henrim Posted October 20, 2022 Report Share Posted October 20, 2022 I saw a diatonic scale dulcimer the other day and thought it would be fun to make one. Maybe even fun to play. Not a guitar exactly but a solid body stringed instrument anyway. If it doesn’t belong here feel free to remove. Apart from fun I thought it would be an easy project to try out some things. Like winding a pickup. Ordered wire and magnets. I started by running an old strat type de-tuner through my milling machine. Ain’t that a sweet little thing Also planed and glued some linden (or maybe basswood) for the body. It will have 24.750” scale as that’s what I have template for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted October 21, 2022 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2022 (edited) Like so. Edit. That headtock. It is not final. Something like that but not quite the way drawn here. Edited October 21, 2022 by henrim 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nakedzen Posted October 21, 2022 Report Share Posted October 21, 2022 That's pretty sweet. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted October 21, 2022 Report Share Posted October 21, 2022 Thanks for the picture! That helped to figure out what you're going to build. It's funny how the same name is used for two entirely different stringed instruments! Yours is clearly an Appalachian dulcimer while I was thinking of a hammered dulcimer... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted October 21, 2022 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2022 41 minutes ago, Bizman62 said: It's funny how the same name is used for two entirely different stringed instruments! Yours is clearly an Appalachian dulcimer while I was thinking of a hammered dulcimer... Yes, that is odd. And then I’m using that word rather loosely. I guess it would rather be a diatonic scale four string guitar. Or cigar box guitar. But there is no cigar box and even the scale is not pure diatonic as it includes the flatted sevenths (frets 10 and 22). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted October 23, 2022 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2022 Some routing done and body roughly cut to shape. Also made a template for edge routing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted October 24, 2022 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2022 Back side routed. Or milled actually. Yesterday when I milled the front I didn't have any drawn plans. I had just written some notes and measurements on the top of the body. I had to calculate tool offsets in my head as I milled. So did the tremolo cavity become 3mm too wide (half of 6mm bit). It's ok, but that was a stupid calculation error. That's why I usually make some sort of plans with at least rudimentary coordinates. And so i did with the back side today. Also drilled jack hole and wire cavity. Potentiometer places have only pilot holes as I need to carve the body first before I know how deep to recess the holes. And I trimmed the body. But only to the point where the backside curvature ends. This way I have a nice line to carve to. This process has taught me that my milling machine doesn't have enough movement on the Y-axis to mill a full size guitar body cavities. Or there is enough movement but the body would collide with the machine's vertical column. I had thought I would mill my current guitar build. But I can make routing and drilling templates on the machine. Not that it would be necessary to do so but with the milling machine I can cut precise matching bottom and top templates. Anyway that is better approach because it is painstakingly slow to mill deep slots in wood with metal milling machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted October 24, 2022 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2022 I realized after posting that I had forgotten to counter sink the neck mount holes. But here we go. Inserts went in without cracking the whole thing 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted October 25, 2022 Author Report Share Posted October 25, 2022 Carved the body and drilled potentiometer mount holes. Body is pretty much done. Next up with the neck. When I get to shaping the heel I’ll see if the body still needs more planing. Pot mounting is an evolved version of the one I planned using in my current guitar build. Lessons learned here will be used there. Same goes with neck mounting. And pickup mounting. It’s all about mounting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted October 25, 2022 Author Report Share Posted October 25, 2022 Yes, and this is obviously the time I would love to start to second guess my decision to paint this body. But luckily no can do as the pieces I used to glue the body together don’t match very well. That is just so beautiful wood and very pleasing to work with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted October 31, 2022 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2022 I’ve been less productive for almost a week now, thanks to Covid. Anyway, today the mailman brought me something from Belgium! Now I just have to try to wind the pickups for this one and I also got some hardware to try winding humbuckers as well. I’ll have to think the setup but I reckon I will use a small lathe for the process. It has variable speed motor so it should do. I might hook up a magnet to the lathe chuck and read the revolutions with a hall sensor. Not necessary for the single coils that go in to this instrument but I want to know when I start experimenting with humbuckers. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted November 3, 2022 Author Report Share Posted November 3, 2022 Got sidetracked a bit from what I originally thought this quick project would be. I could have just wound the pickups and be done with it but I wanted a counter. Luckily it looks like the initial idea works pretty well. So far tested with a cordless drill with a magnet on the chuck. And a hall sensor next to the chuck. Every rotation sends a signal to arduino which just counts them together and shows on a lcd screen. I wanted to use 7-segment leds but I only had three in the shelf, so that’s why the LCD. And the LCD may come handy if I make an other iteration with more functions. But maybe not. I just need to make an arm to hold the sensor beside lathes chuck and start winding. Oh, and the “arduino” in the picture is some sort of knockoff. I would never buy one but that came with some steppers I bought from china. Wouldn’t support such piracy knowingly. All the other boards were hooked to other projects or gone missing. I feel sorry. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted November 4, 2022 Report Share Posted November 4, 2022 That's a way more sophisticated wind counter compared to the ones I've seen used for home made pickups! A mechanical counter is of course a professional old skool tool and I'm not comparing yours to those. I'm talking about modifying a calculator to add 1 by modifying the = button with an extended momentary switch. Guess yours requires a bit more knowledge than just welding two wires... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted November 4, 2022 Author Report Share Posted November 4, 2022 1 hour ago, Bizman62 said: Guess yours requires a bit more knowledge than just welding two wires... That is a pretty simple solution but obviously prior knowledge makes things easier. That calculator mod sounds fun. Although I wouldn’t want to relay on a mechanical switch in the long run. Digital Hall-effect sensor is fast and robust. I actually tried using a read relay first because I didn’t have a suitable hall sensor. Read relay works too but I was afraid it wasn’t fast enough to register all the “clicks” when RPM goes high. Like if I was going to mass produce pickups Anyhow, 2€ sensor was the only thing I had to buy so not a big deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted November 8, 2022 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2022 Started to make a neck. It’s going to be made of maple pieces. Scarf jointed headstock and the heel is glued too. I was going to make a single piece neck but decided to use off-cuts instead. When I routed the truss rod channel I somehow managed to feed the neck blank from wrong direction to the router and it bit a little from the side of the channel. Chiseled the mishap square and glued a piece of maple in. Not a biggie other than the fact it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted November 9, 2022 Author Report Share Posted November 9, 2022 Got the neck bolts aligned with the inserts in the body. Kinda backwards procedure but it went well. Had to run the ferrules through my lathe as for some reason they were around 12.06mm in diameter. Took two tenths away and now they fit into 12mm counter bores. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted November 10, 2022 Author Report Share Posted November 10, 2022 Headstock glued and roughly shaped. Peg holes drilled. I’ll still glue a veneer on top. Which will be painted the same color as the body. Which is white. Also cut a fretboard blank. I guess I’ll radius it a bit. Although maybe it could be straight as well. Don’t know, never played instrument like this. I think the fretboard is some sort Of zebra wood. I’m not sure where it came from. Found it from a pile of wood in the workshop. Nice looking and pretty hard. I’ll make potentiometer knobs of the same stock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Professor Woozle Posted November 10, 2022 Report Share Posted November 10, 2022 AFAIK Appalachian dulcimer fretboards aren't usually radiused, given they're played on the lap and often with a peg (rather like a bottleneck). Having said that, if you're more comfortable with it radiused, go for it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted November 10, 2022 Author Report Share Posted November 10, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, Professor Woozle said: AFAIK Appalachian dulcimer fretboards aren't usually radiused, given they're played on the lap and often with a peg (rather like a bottleneck). Having said that, if you're more comfortable with it radiused, go for it! Yes, that’s what I figured but I feel this one is going to be played more like an electric guitar. The neck is only 36mm wide though so maybe there is no need for radius. I guess I go with straight board for now and radius and re-fret if I feel so after I have played this a bit. Edited November 10, 2022 by henrim 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted November 10, 2022 Author Report Share Posted November 10, 2022 Not the best ever thicknesser but does the job here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicco Posted November 11, 2022 Report Share Posted November 11, 2022 I love the neck joint, really interesting way to do it with the much larger footprint on the back. Looks like it would ge very stable. Do you typically do your bolt on neck joints like that? Or is it just this one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted November 11, 2022 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2022 (edited) 26 minutes ago, Nicco said: Do you typically do your bolt on neck joints like that? Or is it just this one? This instrument is a test piece for an upcoming guitar build. So I haven’t done any like this before. The guitar will have a one piece neck. This one has a separate heal glued with couple of dowel pins (or not yet glued. Only held in place with the pins right now). To me this mount is a natural evaluation of what I did with my black single cut that has a bolt on neck and back mounted pickups. Although I’m not the first one to do it this way. See e.g. Travis Bean aluminum neck guitars and Millimetric guitars that were influenced by them. Edited November 11, 2022 by henrim 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted November 11, 2022 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2022 Fretted and did side markers. Left out the blue notes for now. I may add two frets some time later if a feel bluesy enough. Just glued the heel in place with two dowel pins. Not optimal but hope it’s sufficient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted November 11, 2022 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2022 Made the pickup bobbins. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted November 12, 2022 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2022 Shaped the neck. It is rather thick as I really don’t know how it should be. I reckon it can be chunkier than a guitar neck as the fretboard is so narrow. I guess I string it next to find out 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.