Sunday, March 23, 2014

The Box is Complete!

Who knew that finding a 1/2" knob would be so tricky?  I searched high and low at every local place you can imagine:  antique stores, Menard's, Lowe's, you name it, I was there.  No dice.  Or rather, no knob to my liking.  After expanding my search to online sources, I finally found a suitable knob at MyKnobs.com (but of course) - a perfect little burnished brass thing that was just the ticket at $2.73!  What a bargain!  I placed the order.  Shipping was $7.95.  

Wait.  

What????

Here's the little knob:

And here's the box in which it came!

Okay, so the knob ended up costing $10.68.  Here's a news flash to MyKnobs.com:  You can put that little 1/2" sucker in a small padded envelope and mail it First Class for under $3.00.  I swear, the bigger the company, the dumber they come.

Anyway, I drilled a hole in the center of the box lid, measured the screw for length and then cut it off with a cutoff wheel on my trusty Dremel, and voila!  Here it is!



How stinkin' cute is that?!?  I did have to trim the lid a smidge to get a perfect fit, but it was no big deal.

All that is left is placing my identifying mark on either the nameboard or on the inside of the instrument close to the hitchpin rail.  Since most builders did the latter, I believe that's what I'll do as well.  Pix to follow.

So, I'm finally at the point of No More Excuses (unless you count my piano students, my kiln adventures and orders, and a backlog of mysteries on my Kindle).  It's time to move on to the guts of the instrument.  I better get after it before Daniel Silva's new book comes out in July because I will be unavailable until The Heist has been devoured and thoroughly savored.