Hammered Dulcimer: How many Hitch Pins?

[David Knutson]

I'm working on a 12/11 Hammered Dulcimer using plans from Folkcraft. The plans show a hitch pin for each wire. All of the dulcimers I've looked at have a single hitch pin for each 2 wire pairs. I'm thinking this was because the plans call for 3 wires per course. I'm only going to use 2 wires per course. Is there any benefit to keeping it as drawn with one pin for wire, or would I be better off to have one pin where the wire goes from the tuner, around the pin and back to the next tuner?

[Barry Daniels]

I built some HDs back in the day and used one brass nail hitch pin for two strings but had a couple of pins bend and look like they would pull out. The cause was the extra tension of the double strings. I had to add an extra nail to fix the issue.

I recommend one hitch pin per string.

[David Knutson]

Thanks!