I have more questions than can fit comfortably into one post, so I’ll start with a few about the soundboard. I’d value any insights or suggestions at your convenience.
1. Floating or fixed?
In most dulcimers that I’ve seen online, the soundboard is fixed, or glued immovably to the rails and pin blocks. Sam Rizzetta’s Smithsonian article suggests a floating soundboard, held in place by the pressure of the strings on the bridges.
I like the idea of the floating design for a few reasons:
- Freedom to expand/contract would reduce risk of cracking due to seasonal humidity changes
- I’ve read that it makes the sustain shorter, which would help with faster tunes
- No need to cut soundholes
- Do these reasons make sense?
- Are there strong counterarguments favoring a fixed soundboard?
- Is either design easier technically?
2. Material and thickness
I was thinking of 1/4” birch plywood, as it’s
- relatively inexpensive, and
- available in sheets large enough that we wouldn’t have to deal with edge-gluing
- Is 1/4” (or 0.22”, which I’ve seen listed as the actual thickness of a 1/4” board) thick enough?
- Are there any other materials we should consider that would still avoid edge-gluing or reducing the thickness manually?
Thanks,
Matt
