Dry Run

Today was filled with stained glass work in preparation for an upcoming show, so I could only spare a little time for the clavichord. However, I still made good progress. I needed to set everything in place as it will eventually be so I could check the keyboard clearance. After sanding the front liner, everything fit into place very nicely. I put a balance pin in the bass and treble ends of the balance rail and placed the lowest and highest keys from the keyboard onto those pins.

I inserted a folded piece of thin cardboard into both the kerfs in the tails of the keys and their corresponding kerfs in the rack.

There is supposed to be a 1/16" space between the key tail and the rack. As you might be able to see in the pictures, I don't have that much clearance, so the rack needs to be planed or sanded down. And not by me, I suspect. I'm no good with a plane, and I lack the type of sanding equipment needed to do this correctly. Being new in town, I don't have local friends to call upon, so I will most likely seek out a local professional woodworker. Since the gap is virtually nonexistent, I suppose all I have to do is tell him (or, less likely, her) I want 1/16" taken off - and not a hair more. I'll let you know how that goes, but there's no telling how long this will take. Stay tuned...

Chamfers and Kerfs and Other Weird Words

Last evening, I spread glue on the back, bottom, and wide end of the backrail. In my picture, you might be able to see how the wide end is to the left, and how the backrail tapers on the right side.

I love clamps. Actually, I love a tight instrument, so I use a lot of clamps to make sure everything is as snug as a bug in a rug. I swear I took a picture of the clamps on the backrail, but for some reason, it isn't in the camera, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I used four clamps - two to hold the backrail to the spine and two to hold it tight to the bottom of the instrument. After the glue dried, and I removed the clamps, I did a quick dry run, just to make sure parts hadn't magically disappeared.

Since Zuckermann has accused me of throwing away large pieces of finely finished and rather expensive walnut designed for a stand (the entire apron, actually), I thought I'd check my sanity and make sure more parts hadn't disappeared into the ether. As you can see, the guts of the clavichord are still in my possession, just as they were when I first opened the box upon delivery. The parts that were missing when I opened the box are still missing. Nice try, Zuckermann! Perhaps the ghost of the King of Sweden sneaked in when I wasn't looking and took them. See earlier posts for additional rants on that subject. And be sure to tune in for future rants because I blessed the company with one more email last night in an attempt to get them to make good on my purchase. They made a veiled promise of resolution when they asked me to "be patient." That was three years ago. I've been plenty patient. But, I digress...

In this picture of my second (and partial) dry run, you can better see that the treble hitchpin rail is placed atop the backrail. The kerfs, which in everyday common language are also called notches or slits, cut in the wood are facing outward rather than upward, which is logical since they will be used in tandem with the kerfs in the back end of the keys to line up the keyboard properly.

I also checked the treble hitchpin rail against the blueprint, and the piece matches up nicely, although a hair too long, so it was treated to a little sanding on the bass end. To the right and along the back of the instrument is the little rear belly rail which sits at a right angle to the treble hitchpin rail. Then, to the right of that is the rear liner which, as you can see in the first dry run photo, is a tad bit too long, so today I sanded it as well. In the picture above, it fits nicely along the spine. On the left front of the rear liner, I cut a chamfer. For the uninitiated (such as myself), a chamfer is a flat surface that you create when you cut off the edge of a block of wood. In other words, a bevel edge. Thank you, Merriam-Webster. The manual suggested I use a knife or a chisel. I once had an ex-husband who cut off a chunk of his index finger with an exacto knife while trying to replace a bathroom window, so I didn't care to risk that particular sharp object. And I prefer to use chisels on chunkier pieces of wood, simply because I don't use chisels with any frequency and therefore lack the control or skill I think I should possess. The rear liner is only 1/2" thick and doesn't need anything huge to create that bevel, so I pulled out my favorite tool - my handy dandy Dremel. In mere minutes, a nice little sanding barrel of an attachment safely created my chamfer, the purpose of which is to allow a little more vibrating area in the treble end of the soundboard. The manual said the chamfer didn't have to be fancy, which I took to mean pretty, but mine is. It won't ever show, but I'll secretly know it's nice.

The next step will be to do another full dry run much like the first, only this time with the addition of balance pins, a couple of keys, and a few other parts to make sure everything is lining up properly and the keys are going to fit. I'll be sure to report my findings.