Hi John,

Here are the three options they have that are available to ship pretty soon. Dampers can be installed on any of these and custom or upgraded soundholes are also available for all three. All three are XR-Right (extended range bass is on the right) and all three have dual-response bridges. Two of them have dark, almost black soundboards. Recently I designed for Mark Wade’s instrument and he did this black stain and it’s really sharp looking. I’m including a photo of his instrument because it’s a better picture and really shows how nice these black soundboards look with a custom soundhole and dampers. It also adds some nice contrast with the rosewood bridges.

We can add dampers, case, and custom soundholes (if you’d like), but the good news is that all of these models are base price, $4,699.

Dampers are $799 for hardwood or stained hardwood. We have some design options for dampers that would increase that price, but the base price for regular dampers is $799. Custom trim on your dampers is another way to make one of these existing instruments more personalized.

The DulciForte case is $399

If electronic pick-ups are something you’re interested in, we can install Schatten pickups on any of these instruments for $349.

For custom inlays, Master Works has different prices. Off hand, I know their cost for cutting and installing soundholes like the ones on mine, Mark’s and Joshua’s instruments. They charge $150 for the Abalone inlay and $250 to cut, assemble, and install custom 3-piece designs like that. The finished look of these types of designs is really spectacular.

You can visit my page on soundhole designs to see some of the types of things we can do. My base price for a single piece design is $175 (1 piece of wood), for a 2 piece design, it’s $225 (this includes two pieces of wood with abalone , and for a 3 piece layered design with abalone ring (Mine, Mark’s, Joshua’s) I charge $275. If a design is especially intricate, the price can go up. Your cost would be 50% off those prices.

Simply adding a really custom soundhole to any of the existing instruments they have in stock will really personalize the whole thing.

Those are most of the upgrades available on these instruments. For all upgrade options on custom built instruments, that information is further down on this page.

Option 1

This one has Bubinga Endrails and a Red/Black Stain.

Option 2

This one is my favorite. I love these end rails. It has a Black/Cranberry soundboard gorgeous canarywood end rails and purple-heart bindings.

This has the soundhole installed, but it can be swapped out for a custom inlay if you want that.

Option 3

This instrument will get strung next week.

The soundboard is brown stain and the endrails are zebrawood. I really like this palette of neutral browns. The soundboard on this one has a great grain.

Building a Custom Instrument

The other option would be to customize your instrument. They have a warehouse full of wood, so I think it would be best for me get an idea of the types of wood colors you like before having them send me a bunch of pictures. But here is some information on colors and options. I’m also linking to a buyer’s guide that I put together for Master Works. You can scroll to the custom options and add-ons to see some diagrams of what parts of the dulcimer are customizable.

The prices I’m showing are current prices and are subject to change in the future. Once you’ve chosen your options, we ask for a 50% deposit to build it.

This is a curly maple pinblock (+$150)

The dampers are stained hardwood (standard price)

This is my instrument. This is kind of “the works”. I’ll outline the details and extra charges for these options.

Dampers: Base Price = $799

These are Curly Maple Dampers +$100
Contrasting Wood Trim +$200
Abilone Inlay +$400

Pinblocks

Pinblock Veneer (my pinblocks are hard maple, but have a veneer to make them appear as though they are koa on top and bottom) + $200
Pinblock Trim (the maple stripe down the pinblock) +$150
Abalone Pinblock Inlay +$200

This photo shows abalone inlay on the end rails. All instruments come with contrasting endrail bindings included, but you can customize these by layering different wood or adding abalone.

Abalone Binding Inlay +$400

Here are a couple other photos. These instruments are in the works but you can see where one has a layered pinblock binding and one has different wood inlays on the pinblocks. I believe the price for either of these options is $200