One picture is worth a thousand words

If memory serves, when I built my two harpsichords, the first thing I built was called the "horse." It was the business end of the instrument just above where the keyboard sat. Its centerpiece was the oak wrestplank (also sometimes referred to as the pinblock), which was the heaviest piece of wood in the entire harpsichord. Of course, the instrument was strung north/south, so it made sense that it would be up front. It was into that very solid piece of wood that I drilled holes for the tuning pins. With the clavichord, the rim of the instrument (its framework, so to speak) comes first with the small, lightweight (by comparison) wrestplank and hitchpin block being inserted on the sides for an east/west stringing. When the rim is done, it comes time to attach the bottom of the instrument.

On my old harpsichord, the bottom was an unattractive piece of plywood. On the fretted clavichord, it is a lovely piece of wood that is constructed, it would appear, from long pieces of spruce or fir, 13/16" x 3/4", that are glued together in a northwest by southeast pattern. It is the heaviest piece of wood in the clavichord simply by virtue of its size and thickness.

Again, the instructions are a bit confusing: set it up, flip it over, it should go in this direction, etc. All right..... Is that direction before or after you flip it? Not too clear, but fortunately, the writer explains that the "slanted" construction follows the direction the strings will take in order to counteract their pull. Consulting the photos included with the manual was helpful, although I did need to look closely because the various "strips" of wood do not vary in color nearly as much as mine below does.

The picture says it all.

Once I had this clear in my mind, I flipped the rim and bottom over and marked the spots where I will drill for the screws.

And then America's Got Talent came on, and it was time to stop. So I did.

Fretted Clavichord Construction for Dummies

Moving to a new town coupled with a sudden influx of stained glass wedding invitation orders temporarily sidelined clavichord construction for a while, but today, Labor Day 2010, I ran out of excuses.

This project is from a Zuckermann King of Sweden kit. My plan is to document the progress as well as the problems I encounter. Should any fellow builders happen to find this blog, I hope you'll share any insights or comments.

Let me begin by saying that I really miss David J. Way, or D. Jacque Way as he later came to call himself. He was the designer of the two Flemish instruments I built and the person who purchased Zuckermann Harpsichords from Wolfgang Joachim Zuckermann in 1969. David was a real character and a pottie-mouth who didn't care who was within earshot, but all in all, he was a decent enough guy with a passion for the instruments. He also knew how to write a great instruction manual. He was also pretty fair-minded, and if something was wrong as a result of the company's failure, he made it right. The current owners charged me full price for a clavichord stand, but only sent half of it. They have refused to make good on it, so this will definitely be the last kit I ever buy from them.

Although I have built two Flemish harpsichords, I am a rank amateur when it comes to clavichords; hence the title of this post. My husband is helping out with this kit, so I want to take a moment to publicly thank him for putting up with me. Mainly he's a sounding board because glue is involved with this very expensive kit, and I need him to keep me thinking clearly.

The first thing we did was sand the case front cutouts.

A tack cloth was really handy at this stage. We sanded the insides of the case parts and laid the bottom of the case on the table, assembled the four sides and placed the four included clamping blocks at each of the corners.

We added the rope to the corners as directed, checking frequently for square.

You'll notice in the above pix that there is a piece of wood inside the case rim. How did I know to add that? Well, it certainly wasn't because the manual told me to do it! It came about as the result of a lot of head-scratching. The manual says, "Spread glue on the sides only of the blocks..." Well, that's dumb because the only blocks mentioned so far are the corner clamping blocks, and they are not a part of the kit; they're just tools to help the case stay together during this early stage of construction. After some time, I went back to the beginning of the section which is entitled, Building the Case. The subtitle reads, The case rim, the wrestplank, the hitchpin block, and the bottom. Hmmm.... What the writer neglected to mention is that one must take the wrestplank and the hitchpin block and place them inside the rim. In fact, those parts aren't mentioned at all until several paragraphs later following the instruction to remove the "clamping blocks." (Well, if you've just glued them to the rim, how are you going to do that? Don't worry. I knew something was missing in the instructions and I didn't even unwrap the bottle of glue until I had it figured out.) It is well past this part of the construction that the writer begins to actually refer to the wrestplank and the hitchpin block. Ah. Light bulb moment. Suddenly, "the blocks" now refers to the hitchpin block and the wrestplank, not the clamping blocks. Normally, I'd just chalk it up to inexperience, but the writer goes to great lengths at the beginning to tell the reader that he has written the manual at a level intended for the "handy but inexperienced woodworker." Hah. Apparently, he's never met the likes of me, the person for whom the whole series of Dummies books was written.

I think that part of the manual could use a revision because I really hate it when terms for various parts are used interchangeably, but I digress...

We applied the glue to the ends of "the blocks," which in reality are the sides of the wrestplank and hitchpin block that attach to the sides of the rim. We then clamped them to their respective sides.

After they had set up sufficiently, we disassembled, cleaned up the squeezed out glue and added glue on the corners of the entire rim. We reassembled, added the clamping blocks, ran the rope around the entire rim and tightened it up using barnwood scraps at the corners and screwdrivers to twist the rope tighter.

With that, we called it a day. It was only mildly stressful for a brief time.

I keep reminding myself that this day's task was huge for a couple of reasons. First, this is the framework for the rest of the instrument; it's important to get it right. Second, it's been a while, and I've got to get my mind wrapped around the whole process again.

I'm optimistic.