Adventures In Side Bending
Good Morning, Y'all
Happy Friday! We're in the middle of January now, and the frosty winds of Northern Indiana are keeping us all chilly. It was 2 degrees (Fahrenheit) this morning, which isn't a whole lot different from last week, or the week before. Brrr.
But the frigid temperatures outside aren't slowing us down in the shop. We have pretty good insulation, and a couple of huge furnaces, so we're keeping our usual 68 degrees (still Fahrenheit) in the workshops. (I'm using plural here because we have both a "wood workshop" and a "sewing workshop" - in different parts of our building.)
Adventures In Side Bending
I've spent the past few days bending side sets. The best use of electricity, and of my time, is to try to amass a large batch of bent sides - from a varied collection of woods - for future dulcimer building. The side bender takes 45 minutes to get up to temperature, and only 15 minutes to bend two side sets, so I try to minimize the number of warm-up cycles compared to the sides I actually make.
Here's our side bender:
FolkRoots® side bender, made by its founder, Howard Rugg, in 1972
Our side bender isn't much to look at, but it works great! Resistance heating, elements in both top and bottom portions. We control the temperature with a variac - an AC transformer that can reduce the AC voltage - which means that the resistance coils produce less heat.
Different woods require different temperatures, and different amounts of time in the bender.
Here's the bender, open, with bent sides (cherry!) ready to pull out for cooling:
And here are two pairs of sides, unbent, about to be turned into hourglass-shape sides, ready to use:
I've moistened the wood and when I pull these (ash wood, this time) sides out of the bender in about 15 minutes, they'll be dry.
Here's what I've gotten done yesterday, and today, so far:
Starting in the top left, you can see: cherry (salmon colored), maple (white), poplar (green!), walnut (brown), poplar (green), walnut, Honduras mahogany (brownish red), African mahogany (just one pair, much redder), walnut, maple, Honduras mahogany, and maple.
Every side set is a bookmatched pair. I'm careful to keep each pair together, and in the correct orientation, so that when the sides are glued up to become a dulcimer body, the symmetry is maintained. Here's a poplar side set, with a pronounced mirror image:
You can see the green and white pattern in the grain - the green part is at the lower part, and will be towards the tail of the dulcimer.
And here's a side set (Honduras mahogany) with a hole pre-cut for a Fishman pickup system:
We can cut the hole for the Fishman preamp after an instrument is built, but it is a little faster (and neater) to cut the hole before we bend the sides.
I probably won't have to bend sides for a really long time/practically forever now, so over the coming days I can focus on the next "make a bunch of parts" project. I'm still working on the cart of fretboards that Y'all saw last week. Those will be finished off this weekend, most likely. I use a tool called a "jointer" a lot for fretboard-making, and it can be pretty dangerous, so I like to use the jointer in smaller blocks of time, just so I can keep my focus when using the tool. (My thinking is that "keeping my focus" is about the same thing as "keeping my fingers"...)
I'm heading back to the shop, now, to bend a few MORE sides. Good grief!
Thanks for reading, Y'all - have a great (and hopefully warmer than here in Indiana) weekend!
Sincerely,
Richard Ash, luthier-who-likes-bending-sides-more-in-the-chilly-winter-than-in-the-hot-summer-months
FOLKCRAFT® DULCIMER PLAYER OF THE WEEK: DAVE KERWOOD
Folkcraft: How long have you been playing the dulcimer?
Dave: I've been playing string instruments for nearly 30 years, but dulcimer is a recent passion. I picked up my first cardboard dulcimer on a whim in the summer of 2022 and bought a cheap wooden one about a month later. I didn't start taking it seriously until April of 2024 when I bought a FolkRoots dulcimer from a friend and a proper Folkcraft a month or so after that. I promised myself that if I was going to spend the money on a nice instrument, I'd have to put in the time to get really good at it. I promised myself that I would compete in the National Dulcimer Competition at the Walnut Valley Festival.
Folkcraft: When did you get your first Folkcraft dulcimer?
Dave: I bought a 1985 FolkRoots from a friend in April of 2024, but about a month later, I rescued my 2002 Folkcraft from a guy selling an entire collection of dulcimers. He was a guitarist who bought the entire collection from somebody else, but never learned to play. I'm very happy to have both a California style and a Kentucky style - they're a great "one-two punch" when it comes to musical style.
Folkcraft: Where do you enjoy playing your dulcimer?
Dave: I love playing gigs around town or for my elementary students. True to my goal, however, I did compete in the National Dulcimer Competition and was humbled to be the fourth-place finalist my first time around. I'm excited to get out there again in 2025. I also started posting weekly dulcimer covers to my YouTube channel - I've just hit my 6 month anniversary of doing that. I enjoy taking songs that you'd never imagine being on dulcimer - by artists like Dua Lipa, Earth Wind and Fire, or Weezer, for example - and doing my best to present a fun version on this traditional instrument.
Folkcraft: What other hobbies, or interests, do you have besides playing dulcimer?
Dave: I love traveling with my family, seeing theater shows, and touring historic buildings. I also write and perform original music, both solo and with my band, "Kerwood." I'm an elementary school music teacher and now use the dulcimer as the standard that I compare and contrast when teaching my classes any string instrument.
Thanks for everything you do for the dulcimer community!
CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT MORE FOLKCRAFT PLAYERS LIKE DAVE & YOU!
HEY ALL YOU LOVELY FOLKCRAFT® PLAYERS - COME JOIN THE FUN!
We are thrilled to be able to welcome Dave Kerwood to our online global dulcimer community today.
Who's Going To Write In Next? Keep The Family Growing?
It really is super-easy to join our online dulcimer community. Just three easy steps:
1) Send an email to: newsletter@folkcraft.com
2) With the answers to the four questions below
3) Attach a photo of yourself with your Folkcraft dulcimer(s)
We look forward to hearing from you and featuring you in our newsletter real soon!
1. How long have you been playing the dulcimer?
2. When did you get your first Folkcraft dulcimer?
3. Where do you enjoy playing your dulcimer?
4. What other hobbies, or interests, do you have besides playing dulcimer?
FOR JUST A LITTLE WHILE LONGER WE'RE OFFERING A $25 FOLKCRAFT GIFT CARD TO ANYONE WHO ANSWERS THE FOUR EASY QUESTIONS LISTED ABOVE, AND SENDS IN A PHOTO (OF YOU WITH YOUR FOLKCRAFT DULCIMER)
This Week's Featured YouTube Video:
Here's something for all you new (or new-ish) players out there. The second video in a 3-part Getting Started series by our very own, Bing Futch. Have fun! Just click on the image below to watch.
We have a slew (that's a fancy luthier word for "bunch") of videos for you to watch on our YouTube channel. Click here to see the full list. Be sure to comment on a video, and subscribe to the channel - either action helps us a LOT with YouTube's suggestion algorithms.
Here are our Second Saturday Clinics for 2025. A jam, a workshop, lunch, and a concert - all for only $44. It's a bargain for sure, so don't wait too long to sign up - these clinics fill up fast! Just click on the artist's name below to register.
June 14, 2025
July 12, 2025
August 9, 2025
FAVORITE SING - ALONG SONGS FOR THE MOUNTAIN DULCIMER
by Judy House
Favorite sing-along songs? For mountain dulcimer? Available as a low-cost, immediate-right-now-no-waiting download? Wow!
Judy House has done it again. This is an amazing book, full of songs that you probably know. The kind of songs that are fun, easy, and relaxing. Songs you can really enjoy.
We all love the traditional old-time tunes, the fiddle tunes, the beautiful Irish melodies. But... Sometimes we want something more familiar, and this book fits the bill. The arrangements aren't too complicated - they strike a happy medium between "this is so simple it sounds awful" and "how can anyone possibly play this." Seriously - this is a great book. You'll love it!
This book is published by Judy House, and is made available here as an authorized, licensed download.
