DEFINITIONS
I have included this here so that you will understand many of the terms being referred to in other places in this web site.
Tuning head That end of the dulcimer containing the devices that are used to tune the instrument.
Pin End The opposite end of the dulcimer from the tuning head - where the strings are attached solidly to the instrument.
Nut - That hard material at the end of the fret board near the tuning head. By means of properly spaced grooves, it spreads the strings in the correct configuration and keeps the strings at the right height at that end of the fret board.
Zero Fret This is a special fret found on some instruments. It is located about one eighth of an inch just forward of the nut. It sets the proper string height at that end of the fret board - and the nut, then, is used only to spread the strings properly.
Saddle This is that hard material down near the pin end of the dulcimer that the strings pass over before being affixed to the dulcimer. This is not to be confused with the bridge. The saddle sits on top of the bridge. On some instruments the saddle and the bridge are one piece such as on a fiddle.
The Bridge
- This is the part of the dulcimer that supports the saddle. On most dulcimers
this is actually a part of the fret board and located near the pin end of the
dulcimer. On guitars, this is the
wide wooden piece below the sound hole. On
some dulcimers it is a freestanding unit, much like the freestanding bridge of a
fiddle.
The
Stum Hollow That
scooped out portion of the fret board down near the saddle.
FSB Dulcimer I may be coining a term here. I will use this term to refer to a freestanding bridge dulcimer (FSB dulcimer). It is just easier to say. A free standing bridge dulcimer is one in which the fret board ends with the last fret and the saddle sits atop a free standing bridge located between the end of the fret board and the pin end.
Binding This refers to that decorative strip that one sees on some dulcimers around the corners of the instrument where the top and sides meet. It is usually of some fairly dense or hard material, often curly maple. Its purpose is to hide the end grain of the relatively soft top or bottom and to give the corner extra protection from those dings that are bound to happen.
Purfling This is a decorative strip or strips that lie just inside the binding between the binding and the top material. It is often a combination of black/white/black strips of wood. It is very elegant, and rather costly to install. A less expensive, yet perfectly decent way to attain something of the same effect is to install a single walnut strip in place of the b/w/b strips.
MOP This refers to mother of pearl. Inlay on instruments is often made of this material - or abalone.
A Flat Head This refers to a flat type tuning head found on most guitars, banjos, and mandolins. Many dulcimers have a shillelagh shaped tuning head (good in a bar fight) with the tuning pins in a narrow groove.
Book Matched - This refers to splitting a board like opening the pages of a book so that the grain on one side closely matches the grain on the other side.
Quarter sawn This refers to the orientation of the annual rings of the tree. In wood, the winter growth or rings are much more dense than the summer rings. If you look at the end of a board and see that the annual rings are standing vertical, that is, perpendicular to the broad surface of the board, that board is quarter sawn. If you look at the wide surface of a quarter sawn board, it will appear as fine stripes with little figure. A high figure in a board comes from its being flat sawn, with many of the annual rings coming close to being parallel to the wide surface of the board.