Dulcimers built with poor wood which has badly filled wormholes is not good! But some of my best sounding dulcimers are deliberately made of wood which is full of wormholes - it makes the wood lighter and more resonant. Wormy chestnut is the most common, but I also have a dulcimer made from wormy butternut.
The chestnut tree was decimated by blight in the early 1900s in the USA but old buildings and old fences have been re-cycled for use in high quality instruments. Attached are pictures of a wormy chestnut Clifford Glenn dulcimer from 1983 and two different Sam Carrell dulcimers from 1976 and 1982, the teardrop wormy butternut, the hourglass a baritone wormy chestnut dulcimer. Geoff Black, Revels Music revelsmusic.co.uk
The chestnut tree was decimated by blight in the early 1900s in the USA but old buildings and old fences have been re-cycled for use in high quality instruments. Attached are pictures of a wormy chestnut Clifford Glenn dulcimer from 1983 and two different Sam Carrell dulcimers from 1976 and 1982, the teardrop wormy butternut, the hourglass a baritone wormy chestnut dulcimer. Geoff Black, Revels Music revelsmusic.co.uk