This mountain dulcimer will have an elliptical body shape similar to Galax-style dulcimers, but the width will be just six inches wide as I dry bent the wood. Next time I'll try soaking the wood in hot water for 45 minutes and see how much of a wider bend I get. When I tried to dry fit to 7", one of the boards started to make a cracking sound, so I backed off to 6". Even so, one of the side boards ended up cracking in 2 places. I suspect it was the side that I tried to bend for 7". Anyway, I replaced both sides, building each side out of 3 pieces of trim wood to yield a depth of 3", to go along with the Galax tradition of deep sound boxes.
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