Hmm.  I hope I'm not too far off topic *already*, but ...  I'm on a
hammered-dulcimer mailing list, where there's been a fair amount of
discussion, on & off, of kits.  From some has come the claim that they,
or someone they know, has put together one which sounds & looks pretty
good, at a fraction of the price of a fully-assembled HD; from others,
comments along the lines of "I never heard one that was better than
awful".  The HD world is a place where building your own *from*scratch*
is not all *that* uncommon.  (By way of comparison: How many guitarists
do you know who built their own?  I've played for over 30 years, & hung
out with guitarists some of that time, & never met even one.)  But I'd
judge that a kit would provide you with the opportunity to avoid most
of the precision work which, if done *slightly* wrong, will ruin the
end product - cutting the wood & drilling the holes for the tuning pins.

(Free-associating a bit:
We recently put together a file cabinet my parents had bought; a year or so
ago we assembled a desk for ourselves.  Both of these were cheap materials
(particle board, though not quite the lowest end of the genre), but seemed
to be well designed with decent hardware, etc.  (The instructions were only
so-so.)  I'd say that the prevalence of "some [meaning *all*] assembly
required" stuff may have less to do with the labor cost of assembly than with
the realities of shipping & storage.  But I could be wrong.  In any case,
do these qualify as kits in any meaningful way?)

What are your experiences with kits?  Do they actually provide the
do-it-yourselfer with savings, or do they merely provide the satisfaction
and education of, well, doing it - some of it, anyway - *yourself*?

34 responses total.

I designed and build a functional, collapsible desk out of  fairly inexpensive
materials and got a result which, although ialthough it doesn't look as good
as a kit product, is better suited specifically to my needs and was a little
cheaper.
 the best part is that it is held together solidly by loose pin hinges which
can be removed and the desk broken down, without tools, for easy transport.

My friend in Holland made her own guitar, out of apple wood, which she said
had to be aged for a few years first.  I don't know how it sounded.  (Before
that she tried for a few years to breed a long-haired grey guinea pig in the
same shed used for aging the apple wood, and since then has been growing 15'
high sunflowers.)  ER, we may eventually ask for advice on how to build
kitchen cabinets and/or shelving, have you experience in that?

i can *build* all sorts of things, but i have very little experience in finish
carpentry.  my approach is rough but functional.
I built my coffee table out of scrap wood from someone's thrown-out waterbed
frame.  my bed (with large pull-out drawers) and desk, i built with purchased
materials.

We made a bench out of one and saved another.  Nice sturdy prefinished wood.

The kits I guess will have to be tried to find out the true results.  I've
talked to at least a couple of guitarists who have assembled electric
instruments, with good results.

The public library has an excellent video on Instrument Makers of Colonial
Williamsburg, showing how harpsichords and violins were made.  Judging from
the video, the kit would save you a huge amount of work.  (There are also
videos on barrelmaking and silversmithing).

would barrelmaking be coopering or coopersmithing, or both?

Or maybe coopery (as in carpenter-carpentry?).  Don't know.

I did find coopering in Webster's, perhaps a coopersmith would be the person
who makes the iron bands that go around barrels?  In Japan I think they use
ropes instead of hoops.  Different carpentry traditions.

There's a book at the public library you may want to check out, davel, only
I've got it right now - it's called 'making wooden folk instruments' or some
such, and includes plans for building a hammered dulcimer from scratch...it
looks like something do-able, if you have a decent amount of carpentry skill.
Of course, I don't have a decent amound of carpentry skill, so what do I
know...

<dave hastens to say that he knows better than to try to build a dulcimer, but
that discussions of kits on the list made him think of entering this item>

I built a harpsichord from a Zuckerman kit in 1965. The kit cost $150, and
the additional wood and hardware ca. $120. The parts that came in the
"kit" were the (unfinished) soundboard (1/8" spruce ply is hard to find),
keyboard (plastic key veneer), jacks and jack rail and slide
(unassembled), and metal parts except hinges. One builds the inner and
outercases, nut, bridge, etc, and also cuts, installs and adjusts all the
plectra. I built it on my living room floor, but used power machinery at
the U. I learned to play it - or rather, some pieces on it - over the next
few years. It is a single-manual, singly-stringed instrument of 4 3/4
octaves with manual piano-forte and lute stops (no pedals). Besides my own
use of it, on some occasions I loaned it out for use in plays or other
performances. I've rather neglected it recently, and it needs a thorough
tuning and 'voicing'.

Rane, if you will get back with us in late March or early April, we know a
piano tuner who could probably help you learn to tune the harpsichord, or
maybe you already know how?

I am quite competent at tuning and voicing my harpsichord. I've converted
from a pitch pipe to my laptop, however. Voicing is *much* more difficult
than tuning, which is what puts me off. It is said that Bach spent an
hour voicing his harpsichord before every time he played it (I suspect
not more than twice a day, though....). 

What does it mean to 'voice' a harpsichord?

(If it's anything like the meaning of the word for the piano, and I'm not
confusing it with something else, I think it means fixing the tone, rather
than the pitch, of the strings)

How do you do that?

duh...I dunno... :)

The strings on a harpsichord are plucked, not struck. The pectra on early
(and my) instruments were leather, cut just so, to provide a not too stiff
and not too soft "pluck". This depends on the leather, its undercut (how
the underside is cut back from the tip), how far it extends past the
string, and its history of manipulation. After you have cut the plectrum
and set it into the jack, you can adjust its position slightly with a
screw in the jack, and adjust its resilence by 'working' it to soften it,
or applying some nail polish (!) to the underside to harden it. Whatever
you do - it later changes with use and the weather. The undercut must also
be smooth so that when the key is released, the plectrum can be forced
slightly to the side to slip past the string (it is retained in position
against a stop by a light spring). There are 54 of these jacks...awaiting
your (daily) personal attention.

what did they use after they stopped using leather, then?

And I thought I had problems trimming my clarinet reed.  I used to glue on
new cork pads with nail polish, invaluable stuff.  It sounds like harpsichord
maintenance is a full-time job, building it must have been the easy part.

What software do you use to tune your harpsichord, Rane?  We will be
inheriting a player piano in the next few years and it will need some
major tuning and will need to be retuned frequently after that.  At
least that is what I am told.  At least I don't need to worry about
voicing, right?

Well, voicing does exist for the piano, but in a much less arduous form,
because the piano mechanism (I would guess from what I've seen) is much less
exacting.  It's still possible to change the tone by fiddling with the action,
changing the hardness of the felt on the hammers, and so forth.  
Are you planning on learning how to tune your piano yourself, then, or on
having someome else do it?

I would like to learn to do it myself.  At least to the point of
frustration ;-)  I don't play piano, however, I have a pretty good
ear for such things.

Unless your ear is better than "pretty good", you won't do it by ear.  Ear
supplemented by tuner (or tuner supplemented by ear), yes.  But some very good
tuners are now readily available.

There's a book at the Ann Arbor Public Library on piano tuning basics.

Yes, I was wondering what kind of tuning software Rane was using.  I
have spectrum analizer software that runs on my PC + soundcard but I
doubt that is good enough.  I'll have to do a search on the subject...
Thank you for the pointer on the basic piano tuning book!

I am using Rustle Laidman's "Perfect Pitch" suite of shareware software
(1993-94) on a Mac Powerbook. This includes his "Guitar Tuner" (shows
deviations from guitar tunings - not useful to me), "Chromatic Tuner"
(indicates the letter pitch and deviation therefrom - the most useful for
tuning), "Lab Meter" (gives the frequency in Hz to 0.1 Hz), and "Grand
Staff" (shows the note on a pair of staffs, and a qualitative deviation of
the pitch from the true pitch). These measure the note when the amplitude
is sufficient, and then freeze the indication when the note fades below
some level. For use with the Powerbook I assembled an electret lapel
microphone unit with a power supply and coupler - a dynamic microphone did
not give enough signal with the rather quiet note of a harpsichord.

A poem on the subject of hammered dulcimers, extracted from Writing 83.
#31 Kenny-killer(babozita) on Thu Jan 22 17:42:30 1998:
 I want to make a box to play a song.
 I have the wire and wood, the lathe and saw...
 I only hope it doesn't come out wrong.
 
 First thing to do is take a wood that's strong
 And jig it out as angled as a jaw:
 I want to make a box to play a song.
 
 Sand down the wood, the way the grain is long,
 Rubbing hard and firm, my fingers raw
 (I only hope it doesn't come out wrong).
 
 And next I thread the wires like a thong:
 The cables strong, yet dainty, as if straw:
 I want to make a box to play a song.
 
 So now I need two mallets for a gong
 And use them on my box -- there is no law --
 I only hope it doesn't come out wrong.
 
 So here I am, awaiting for the throng
 (but hearing chirping bugs and crows that caw)...
 I want to make a box to play a song,
 I only hope it doesn't come out wrong.
 
 There... I played nice... satisfied? =}

The poem is fine.  There's actually a *lot* more to worry about in HD
construction than it would lead you to think, however.  Bracing.  Floating
vs. fixed soundboard.  Since it's fifths (or occasionally (or in some other
parts of the world) octaves) on each treble string across the bridge, the
design has to be such as to maintain that 3:2 (or 2:1) string-length ratio.
Friction pegs also require some precision.  Etc. ad something or other.

libitum?  nauseam?  hoc?  hominem?
<there are too damn many Latin phrases in this language>

(I was attempting to suggest both "infinitum" and "nauseum".)

I assembled a Chaney C4742 Telephone Busy Indicator Kit ("Skill Level 1") 
this evening. This flashes an LED when a phone is off hook anywhere in the
house. I still don't like the solder job I get on printed circuit boards
(though it isn't a problem in the devices operation - just not as
aesthetic as I would like). Next time I think I will polish the board
first as the problem is to get the solder to wet the pads easily. This
thingy has: IC, 1; R, 8; C, 1; LED, 1; D, 1. I followed the board layout
diagram but the circuit diagram *did not agree with the layout* (a
resistor was elsewhere). It was apparent from the diagram that this would
not make any difference whatsoever in the functioning of the device, but
it must sure throw off beginners struggling at "skill level 1". 

The above kit is now installed in the base of a phone, on line 1, clamped
to the leg of my computer table. My modem uses line 2. It was a nuisance
not having a phone at the computer - the 'busy indicator' kit is, of
course, just a phone accessory so I know if line 1 is in use from
elsewhere in the house. I changed the series LED resistor from 1K to 2.2K
to reduce the LED intensity and lengthen the battery life.

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