Build Your Own Hamdolin

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Once I'd bored the peg head holes, I slipped a washer onto each of the bolts, put the fasteners through the peg head (front to back), and secured them loosely in place with the hex nuts. Then I glued a wing nut onto the very end of each bolt with epoxy, so that I could turn any peg to adjust a string merely by turning the wing nut. Simplicity itself!

THE NUT AND BRIDGE

I whittled the nut for my hamdolin from a piece of maple and cut four pairs of shallow grooves into it, to hold the strings in place. The distance from the outside fourth string slot to the outside first string slot is about 1-3/16" ... the distance between each pair about 1/4" ... and the two grooves within ich pair are about 1/16" apart. Then I ipped the nut into the notch I'd carved for between the bottom of the peg head and ie top of the fingerboard.

It's important to make this component tall enough so the strings will clear the first fret, but not so tall that you'll have trouble pushing the strings down on the frets. You may have to file the first fret down a bit, as I did, to make it all work.

With the nut finished, I went on to whitle a bridge (the part that fits between the body of the hamdolin and the strings; see the photos) from a 5-1/2"-wide scrap piece of oak. I found, though, that I couldn't tell how high to build the bridge until I strung the hamdolin. I originally made the bridge 1/2" tall, but ended up adding another piece beneath it—to increase the height to a total of 3/4"—when I discovered that the bridge didn't raise the strings sufficiently. Live and learn.

I also cut grooves in the bridge, just as I had in the nut, to hold the strings . . . but I used slightly wider spacings: 1-5/8" from the outside fourth string slot to the outside first string slot . . . 3/8" between each pair .. and 1/8" between the strings within pair.

ATTACHING THE NECK

Surprisingly, joining the neck to the ham can turned out to be a fairly simple task. First, carved the lower end of the neck to match the contour of the ham can's top. Then I rustled up an old wooden chair rung (a 1/2" or 5/8" dowel would do just fine) and cut it so that it was about 1" longer than the ham can measured from bottom to top.

Next, I drilled a hole the same diameter as the rung approximately 1" deep straight into the end of the neck, lengthwise, and cut a matching hole in the ham can where the two parts would meet. Then I put a little glue on one end of the rung, inserted that end through the hole in the can, and twisted it into the neck until the opposite end of the rung just reached the inside bottom of the can (see the photo). Finally, I drove a screw through the bottom of the ham can and into the rung, to hold it firmly in position.

When you attach the neck to the can, keep in mind that the angle of the two parts (as well as the height of the bridge and nut) will affect the height of your strings. Remember this factor when you drill the hole into the neck, and when you position the dowel before screwing it in place. The higher the strings, the harder the instrument will be to play.

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