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Questions: Instrument Plan #39

Questions: Instrument Plan #39

by Deb Suran

Originally published in American Lutherie #101, 2010

 

Remco Busink from the Netherlands asks:

Two months ago I ordered GAL Instrument Plan #39 of the hammered dulcimer. The instrument is almost finished and I need to know what the numbers are in the string gauge table.


Plan author Deb Suran of Deer Isle, Maine
responds:

The numbers are W&M music wire gauges. I would suggest purchasing plated music wire from a supplier to the music trades (piano / harpsichord / dulcimer strings), and not from a hardware store or industrial supplier. Hardware store wire is oiled, not plated, and will rust.

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Jatoba

Jatoba

by Nicholas Von Robison and Debbie Suran

Originally published in American Lutherie #36, 1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004



Nick: Deb, you just recently completed your 100th instrument. That’s great! Why did you choose jatoba?

Debbie: I wanted to do something special for my 100th instrument. There were times when I was starting out when I thought I’d never live long enough to get into double digits! I decided to build a hammered dulcimer (my 95th) entirely from salvaged woods. I called on friends from CompuServe’s crafts forum’s woodworking section for help, and they sent me maple flooring from an old gym for the pin blocks, birch door casings from a 1913 old-folks’ home for bracing, and the redwood bottom of a wine cask from a 19th-century California monastery for the soundboard. You can still smell the wine on a damp day! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any salvaged wood nice enough for the exterior frame and bridges for the instrument, so I decided instead to use a lesser known species of wood.

In 1986 I bought some tropical woods from a couple who had lived in Brazil for several years and who were augmenting the cash income from their homestead by importing Brazilian woods that were being harvested in an ecologically sound manner. They wanted a hammered dulcimer and I wanted some wood, so we swapped. Greg had a number of woods available that I’d never seen or heard of before and was quite insistent that I give these a try. He was persuasive, so I took some Amazon rosewood (Dalbergia spruceana), one piece of macacaúba (Platimiscium ulei), and a piece of jatoba (Hymenea courbaril). Both jatoba and macacaúba qualified as lesser-known species in those days; the jatoba had more character so that made the decision. A rather roundabout way to be introduced to a new wood. How did you first stumble onto jatoba?

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Questions: Hurdy-Gurdies

Questions: Hurdy-Gurdies

by Debbie Suran, and Harry Schwab

Originally published in American Lutherie #33, 1993

 

We received two more answers to Mario Daigle’s request for information regarding hurdy-gurdies.

Debbie Suran from Deer Isle, ME writes:
I know of one book devoted to the hurdy-gurdy: The Hurdy-Gurdy by Susan Palmer, David and Charles Publ., North Pomfret, VT 05053, ISBN 0-7153-7888-0. It’s rather dry, but you have to take what you can get.

Harry Schwab from Plymouth, MI writes:
A nice kit for the hurdy-gurdy is made by Musicmaker’s Kits, Inc., 423 S. Main, Stillwater, MN 55082.