30th Year Photos/#45

Holey dulcimer!
I knew we were having problems with crickets at the shop but I didn’t know there were termites!  This was an experiment long before Master Works came to be.  I was building about 60 or so instruments a year in the shop out back of our home in Burleson (lived there from 1984 till 1995).  I appeased my desire for creativity, while building so many specific instruments for folks who had ordered them, by including at least one experiment with every set of instruments.  Obviously, I wanted to see just how light I could build one.  I don’t remember just how much it weighed but I bet it was no more than 10lbs.  Notice even the pin blocks were honeycombed.  I do remember the soundboard being redwood and I learned more about its required thickness than anything else.  Oh, by the way, it sounded marvelous, simply marvelous.