Wood Welders And Other Cool Tools
Good Morning, Y'all:
Happy Friday!
This has been a pretty normal, chaotic, week in the shop. Several instruments out the door (this always makes people happy!), a few more for the showroom, and parts made for next week's instruments. Here's a link to our current inventory of 46 dulcimers:
I caught Casey and Cheyenne working side-by-side this morning - on different projects. Casey was assembling a DulciVox Pro while Cheyenne was working on a FolkRoots D Series dulcimer.
Casey's using an assembly fixture - this holds the sides at the correct locations, and makes them perfectly symmetrical to each other.
Look at the tool on the back wall, between Casey and Cheyenne. It's red at the top, green in the middle, gray at the bottom. We'll come back to that tool in a minute.
Casey has glue on the sides now and is making sure that the top is perfectly centered.
Cheyenne has just glued a back to a FolkRoots D Series dulcimer (pictured below). It's an all-walnut instrument and will be up on the website in a couple of weeks (hint, hint). He's using our "wood welder" to cure - pretty much instantly - the glue we're using. It's a regular, normal, PVA wood glue, but it has some additives which make it compatible with our "wood welder."
The "wood welder" is the red and gray box on the wall (full view in the first photo in this newsletter.) The red box in Cheyenne's hands? It is connected to the wood welder, and the red box puts out a strong radio frequency (27 MHz, if it matters to you!) that excites/heats the water in the glue, and makes it cure very, very quickly. Cheyenne will move the hand gun (the red box) slowly over one side of the dulcimer, then back down the other side of the instrument. In about a minute, the glue is cured to a 90% state. After a few minutes of cooling (the glue was boiling a moment ago) we'll be close to 100% strength.
This is a fascinating tool, which (according to the instruction manual) is "Approved For Use By The Department Of The Navy." The Department Of The Navy dates back to the late 1700s, and was renamed (to United States Navy) back in 1949. This tool might well have been used during the war, or it might date to shortly after World War II ended.
The wood welder tool is chock full of vacuum tubes (a lot of us remember having televisions and radios full of tubes, I'll bet). Here's a side view, with the glowing tubes:
The bright yellow visible through the middle cooling vent? Red hot vacuum tubes. Our wood welder dates to the 1940s, but it isn't anywhere near our oldest dulcimer-building tool.
I think it is neat how we use hand tools with muscle power, alongside early electronic tools like this wood welder, alongside the latest computer-controlled routers and lasers. It always comes back to the skill of the craftsman, though, and I'm lucky to have my dad, along with Casey and Cheyenne, working in the Folkcraft wood shop.
Next week's newsletter? A lot of photos of the Castaway dulcimer cruise! I'll keep the text pretty minimal - probably - and annoy Toya (our wonderful newsletter editor) with a barrage of photos.
Thanks for reading, Y'all - go make some music now!
Richard Ash, luthier-who-loves-mixing-old-technology-with-new-technology-to-make-instruments-that-make-Y'all-happy
FOLKCRAFT® DULCIMER PLAYER OF THE WEEK: TINA BROWN
Folkcraft: How long have you been playing the dulcimer?
Tina: I’m a member of the Woodburn Dulcimer Club, the home of Folkcraft Dulcimers. This is where I play in our Tuesday night jams. Being part of this club with a group of awesome people including Richard Ash, our facilitator, is fortunate for me. I’ve been playing a bit more than 5 years. Once I learned the Dave Haas’s songbook, and could keep up with the fast playing, I liked playing fast. These days I’m happy to play several fast songs before I long to slow it down and play some beautiful melodies. I like to play in parts and I do that with the North Webster Players. Adding rhythm instruments is fun. Speaking of rhythm I’m rhythm challenged. Carol Walker patiently helped me with that over Zoom while I learned lots of other cool songs, along with fingerpicking. I especially like Carol’s arrangements. And her teaching.
Folkcraft: When did you get your first Folkcraft dulcimer?
Tina: I have two Folkcraft dulcimers. The first is a beginning dulcimer, cost-wise, with a bright sound. I was happy with it for many years. My recent second dulcimer is a Custom Series Cadillac of a Folkcraft dulcimer. The ebony fret board feels wonderfully smooth for my fingers as I do slides and general fingering. The rosewood body and sitka spruce top is beautiful providing a mellow, rich tone. The dolphin cut outs symbolize the dolphin’s deep dive as I take when learning.
Folkcraft: Where do you enjoy playing your dulcimer?
Tina: Dulcimer festivals are terrific! I can focus a day, or a few days, on just the dulcimer...
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF TINA'S INTERVIEW AND ABOUT OTHER FOLKCRAFT PLAYERS LIKE TINA & YOU!
DEAR FOLKCRAFT® PLAYERS - WE LOVE HEARING FROM YOU!
No new player to add to our online global dulcimer community today, but we're still glad to re-feature Tina Brown. How ya been, Tina?
Who's Going To Write In Next? Keep This Thing 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 receiving your submission & 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:
More moving between "D" and "G." This time you don’t need the 1.5 fret. 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.
FROM DITTIES TO DIRGES
by Janene Millen & Shawn McCurdy
"From Ditties To Dirges" features ballads, lullabies, sea shanties, laments, and courting songs, chosen for their beautiful and haunting melodies. Most of these centuries-old tunes originated in the British Isles.
All arrangements, except one, are for solo mountain dulcimer and most are intermediate level. Arrangements include mountain dulcimer tab, standard music notation, and chord names. For singers, song sheets with lyrics and suggested chord accompaniment are also provided. Historical notes as well as tips for playing and performing are included.
31 tunes • 26 song sheets • 5 tunes with multiple arrangements (high/low, advanced/simple, different keys) • 7 arrangements using 1+ fret • 30 arrangements in DAD tuning; 1 in DAC
The authors have performed many of the tunes on their respective YouTube channels. (Your newsletter editor looked Janene and Shawn up on YouTube and enjoyed listening to them play as she finished up this week's newsletter. Great stuff!)
This book is published by Janene Millen and Shawn McCurdy, and is made available here as an authorized, licensed download.
SOME OF THE SONGS INCLUDED:
Ae Fond Kiss ~ Castle of Dromore ~ Dark-Eyed Sailor ~ Erin Grá Mo Chroi ~ Greensleeves (DAC Tuning) ~ If I Were a Blackbird ~ Lambs on the Green Hills ~ Mary of the Wild Moor ~ Ned of the Hill ~ The Orange Rogue ~ A Pretty Maid Milking Her Cow ~ Rose of Allendale ~ Seikilos Epitaph ~ The Trees They Do Grow High/The Grenadier and the Lady ~ Willie and Mary
NO LONGER AVAILABLE IN BOOK FORM