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Hey all,
Yesterday I started an interesting (to me, anyway) project. Like the thread title says, it's a solid body electric dulcimer. I'm using Menards hog for the body, and curly maple for the fingerboard and other parts.

Rather than using coil pickups, I'm going to use piezos. I'm planning on installing two. One under the saddle, and one closer to the middle of the instrument.

This is my first electric instrument, so if anyone has some experiences they'd like to share (especially regarding the placement of the pickups), please feel free to chime in.

I'll post some pics later.

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

Because I didn't have any mahogany big enough, I glued up multiple pieces.

Most of the electric dulcimers I came across while researching this, were made by taking a board and attaching the components. I wanted mine to be a little more elegant than that, so I carved the top:



Then I drilled some of the holes that will be needed for wiring:








Here it is with the fingerboard in place and after sanding the gouge marks off:

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

Interesting. I like it!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Very cool Phillip!
That one pic looks like a boat hull upside down.
I don't think you can put a piezo in the center,
because the strings need to be in contact with it.
Anyway, here's a mag pickup for a dulcimer.
It's at the bottom of the page.
I'm going to be starting one for a friend soon,
quite similar design.
Keep us posted!
Alan http://sjryder.com/pickups.htm

This is all experimental (in other words, I have no idea what I'm doing) , so it may very well be that both pickups will be useless. If that's the case, it wouldn't be too difficult to add ones like you linked to, or this: http://www.folkcraft.com/2310079.html

I'm hoping they'll work though. I'm going to use a switch that will let me use pickup #1, #2, or mix them.

Here's some more pics.







After the fretboard is glued on, I'll be able to shoot lacquer. I just got some analine dyes from LMI, and decided to use them on this project.

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

Thanks for that link!
The pickups you have there are different from the saddle pickups in the link.
What are those?
What scale length ya going with?
Looks like you'll be done soon.
Can't wait to hear the soundclips,
or, how you think it sounds if you don't do any.

I guess I forgot to say, that the pickups I'm using are actually piezo buzzers from Radio Shack. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... d=2062402#

The price is right, and, now that I've got the thing finished enough to try it out, I know that they work just fine. More on that later.

I removed the piezo elements from their plastic cases.

I used a 25" scale length, because I wanted a more compact dulcimer. The acoustics I've made had 28" scale lengths.

Final round of pics:















I ended up not using the switch because there was not enough room for it. Instead I just used two jacks, one for each pickup.

Turns out both pickups work equally well. The only difference I can detect is that the pickup under the saddle picks up more of the higher frequencies than the other. Which was predictable. Both sound good though. I will try to record some clips.

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

Amazing!
You don't mess around!
Looks great!

Cool as can be. I dig it.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I love the Idea and concept . I am building a Mountain Dulcimer as well . Great Job Looking forward to hearing it played

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That's pretty cool man, I can't wait to see how it sounds!

Yes! That's great!

Well, for what it's worth, I finally got around to recording some samples of this instrument. I was playing through a Fender Mustang Mini amp, using different presets, and recording it with a Zoom H2. Edited with Audacity. Hope you all like Wild Mountain Thyme. LOL (It's not the only song I know, really.)

Electric dulcimer demo

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

I'm a little late posting here but I have to say thats a pretty cool project. I like it....Mike

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Another day, another dollar.

Thank you sir! I'll probably be putting a 3 way switch in place of one of the jacks, otherwise I like it.

I like this one more, though. I just finished it a week or so ago. It uses a single magnetic pickup, and no piezos. I made the pickup myself. It's all mahogany and maple.

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

Looks good, Philip!! Your sound clip sounds like late '60's Strawbs.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Thanks! You must be talking about the first one. Here's a video of the second one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji1w5TsW ... ature=plcp

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com