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Our next door neighbor passed away from lung cancer a week ago today. He was working on a mountain dulcimer for their small granddaughter. Today, his wife asked me to finish it for them. He made the neck, which she's going to locate and bring to me. As you can see, it's basically done, but the finish work, nut, etc.; the cut outs will have to be cleaned up.

The sides are made of cherry and back is oak; I'm not sure what wood he used on the top. It's a 4 string dulcimer. I'm also going to make a label, which will be attached to the back and put under the finish, with a message to Trinity from her "Papa".

Very cool, and a grand gesture for the family.

nice of you to do that

I started on the dulcimer yesterday. One of Tom's dulcimers sits in a museum in Virginia. To remotely come close to what he would have been able to do, is a tough task.

Tom was very sick as he tried to finish the instrument, so there are things to correct that I'm sure would never have needed correction had he been able to do the work. He had problems with the frets and he'd tried to fret it a couple of times. I started by taking out the fretwires and leveling the fretboard. It took substantial time, but the board is level now. I cut the slots again since some where now too shallow for wire. There were some small chips beside a couple of the slots where he'd pulled the wire, but they're minimized now. I think the fretwire will cover any tiny chips, but if not, I'll fill them.

I also scraped glue from several areas, in anticipation of finishing. It appears that there is a thin finish on the dulcimer, but I'll be sanding it substantially, before finishing. It's made of scrap wood that he had on hand, so the back is oak, the top is cherry. I think the fretboard is popular. I talked with his wife today and she'd like the back and top to be glossy, with the sides satin. So, I'll use shellac on the bottom and top, and a couple of thin coats of satin polyurethane on the sides. I'll pore fill with
Aqua Coat, on the bottom. The rest should need no pore filling.

Today, I worked on the soundholes. He never got a chance to work the tool marks out. They were roughly cut, so it took me the better part of the day to smooth them out. One in particular had very deep cuts, straight into the wood. I wasn't sure I would be able to get the cuts out and leave enough wood to form the clefs, but thankfully, I was able to correct them.

They're not necessarily even, or even the same size. I talked to his wife today and told her I was concerned about getting out the tool marks and making the holes uniform, but she said that Tom always said, "If you want perfect go to WalMart!" LOL

Photo #1 shows 2 of the better holes. The other side was worse.
Photo #1 shows the same holes after I filed and sanded them.
Photo #3 shows all 4 holes, after I corrected them. I may still do some more with them tomorrow.

It looks like you did a great job finishing out the sound holes.