Jigs and Assorted Pins

It took two brains and three hands (four if you count the pliers), but the hitchpins, balance pins, felt punchings, and backrail felt are now in place.

The balance pins were easy enough.  We needed a small piece of wood to make a jig.  A piece of Robert Shields's handcrafted (and signed) furniture came to the rescue.  A small block of wood fell off the bottom of this cabinet and we realized it was the perfect size for our needs.  Isn't it a great cabinet?

The little block of wood measured 5/8" which was the exact size I needed.  We drilled a hole through it with a #30 bit which allowed the balance pins to slip through easily.

 

So this musician turned work worker learned that "jig" is more than a dance form.

Next, we tackled the hitchpins.  This was far trickier because they're lined up very closely together.  I had already drilled the holes, so it was just a matter of tapping these little darlings into place.  They needed to be tapped to a uniform height, so we marked the needle-nose pliers with masking tape to show us where 5 millimeters' distance would be. Since these pins are very close to the wall of the case, we felt very clumsy and all thumbs, but we got it done with the help of the nail set used upside down.  We felt we had better control using it that way.  I held the nail set, and my husband did the rest.

Because the needle nose pliers are tapered, we just measured the point at which the height of the pliers was 5 mm and marked it with tape.  When the hitchpin was level with the top of the pliers, we knew we were at the proper depth.  It was a jig of another sort, I suppose.  Here's a shot of us working on the pins on the backrail.

And here is a shot of the pins all in their proper places in the bass hitchpin rail.  As you can see, the wood got a little marred in the process, but I believe that when the strings are in place, it won't be very noticeable.  Down the road, I may decide to refinish those spots before I string.  I'll just have to see how I feel about it.

My third hand was gone when I laid the black backrail felt.  Again, it seemed like I had ten thumbs, but by wedging the needle nose pliers against the balance pins while the nose of the tool held the little 1/2" nails in place, I managed to get five or six nails tapped into the cloth using the wrong end of the nail set once again.  The little red felt punchings went on the balance pins, and this day's work on the clavichord was done.

 

Keywell Label

The word "label" in the instructions finally hit home.  My wheels grind slowly...

I had a couple spare Avery 22809 labels.  They are a fun shape, and the texture is like a laid linen, so one was pressed (get it?) into service.  Using Avery's online template service, I found an acceptable design, filled in my name, location, and description of the instrument, and then added a small picture of myself.  Now when the instrument is discovered in some dusty old junk store by a wise and wonderful keyboard musician of the future, s/he might notice something hiding beneath the keys.  Closer inspection will reveal all my info with a very small picture of me, the builder!  I thought it was a unique, albeit 21st century, touch to my little clavichord.  Check it out!

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.

Fiddling with the Box

I wanted to line the box with something that was not permanent; something that I could remove if I changed my mind or wanted some variety, or could be replaced if it became soiled or tired looking.  The idea I came up with was to somehow adhere a fabric liner to the box.  I wandered Hancock fabrics and waited for something to call to me.  Here's what I found!

  

To stick the fabric to the inside of the box, I chose Aleene's 2-Sided Adhesive Sheets.  Since the inside shape of the box is a little tricky, I cut paper templates and cut the fabric to match the shapes, making sure I had at least 1/4" of fabric to turn under and create clean edges.  The adhesive sheets are very thin and extremely sticky and are holding the fabric very nicely. 

Here's a picture of the finished liner with the tuning hammer stored inside.  

Yes, it's totally out of character for the instrument, but it's my little secret.  With the lid in place, no one will know about it except me.  Using old, yellowed music might have been a better idea, but I wanted something a little softer.  Fabric made sense.  Besides, I can always change it in a heartbeat!

I'm now on the hunt for a little knob to put in the center of the box's lid and did actually come close while digging through drawers of hardware odds and ends in an antique store located in Omaha's Old Market area.  "Close" is the keyword.  Looks like I'll be ordering something off the Internet.  Stayed tuned.

Finishing the Cabinet

For arbitrary and capricious reasons (mostly laziness, I suspect), I elected to use tung oil to finish the cabinetry.  I mostly wiped it on with a lint-free cloth.  This first picture shows the difference the tung oil makes on the wood.  Since the Flemish harpsichords I built had painted cabinets, I was totally inexperienced with finishing nice wood, so I was really surprised at how much the tung oil darkened up the cherry.

Here I am applying tung oil to the clavichord stand.

This next shot shows the various parts of the lid which are drying.  I took extra care to avoid getting the oil on those areas of the lid's frame that will be glued.  The center panel needs to float with the humidity and is not glued into place, but is simply held by the lid's frame.  Since I have no way of truly knowing if the center panel is fully dry or not, the possibility exists for it to shrink in size a little, thus exposing more of its unglued edges. By finishing the entire center panel before assembling it with the fourth side of the lid's frame, I will prevent an unstained edge from appearing should the wood ever shrink. Look at that glow!

Here's a little fine brushwork on the soundboard molding.  I stuck down two widths of masking tape on the soundboard in case I got a little sloppy.  I removed the tape very quickly after the second coat of tung oil was applied to prevent any sticky residue from making itself too comfortable on the soundboard.

Two coats did the job with a 24-hour drying period in between.  The second coat took about half the time of the first coat.  Tung oil sure stinks, but I'm really pleased with the results. 

As promised...the music desk

I've removed the butterfly hinges in preparation for applying a nice finish to the cabinet, but you can see how the desk looks sans clamps.  Next time you see me, I'll be covered in tung oil.

The Music Desk

This was pretty simple.  With the lid opened, I measured the keyboard opening, found its center and marked it on the inside lid about an inch up from the bottom.  I then measured the length of music desk, found its center, marked it.  After marking 1" up from the bottom of the lid in several places where the desk would be placed, I applied a generous amount of glue to the desk and matched the center mark for the keyboard opening with the center mark on the desk, being careful to line up the bottom of the desk with the 1" marks so the desk would be level.  I clamped it on both ends, mopped up excess glue that squeezed out, and called it done.  

Of course, it is possible to glue the desk on incorrectly, but I managed to get it right.  The stack of National Geographic Magazines was eventually piled on the center since I only had two clamps handy.  Had my life partner been around, he might have suggested Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics, but the magazines did the trick.  

From another angle:

Next step is to stain the cabinet.  I'll post a few pix as it progresses.

Over-think much?

And now for the butterfly lid hinges.  

I live in mortal fear of drilling a hole in this very expensive clavichord case and then having to fill them, only to have my goofs stand out like a sore thumb.  So installing these hinges took me a while.  I turned those suckers every which way, trying to make sense of it, trying to make them look balanced.  I even called in consultants - both of whom were equally clueless, but between the three of us, I think we got it right, even though it looks wrong.

Of course, I had to turn those hinges every which way because I didn't have any decent pictures to check my work.  Should any hapless (and equally confused) builders happen upon my rantings, I hope at least my photos will be helpful.

The hinges are attached to the outside of the spine of the case and the inside of the instrument lid, so according to the manual you have to take the hinge apart and flip one side for that to work.  I'm not a cabinet maker, I'm not a carpenter, I don't build hinged boxes on a daily basis, so I just did like I was told.  The pretty hinges were suddenly unbalanced.  Wonker-jayed, if you will.  (I just made up that word, I think.)  We thought it had to be wrong.  They reminded me of a shirt that's been buttoned up one off.  Here's a shot of the left hinge as you're looking at the back of the case (which, in reality, will be the right hinge when you're seated at the instrument).

See what I mean?  Wonky.  Yuck.  I suffer from positional vertigo (and sometimes worse), so anything this crooked doesn't help.  And I wanted both hinges to be mirror images. Unfortunately, they're going to be parallel because there's no way to do what my all-things-in-balance self wants.  So be it.  

So, now, lots of pictures starting with the hinge on the right (which will really be on the left when playing the instrument). 

To get to the point pictured above, I positioned the hinges three inches from the edge of the lid and drew circles where I was going to drill pilot holes for the screws.

Next, I tapped a small nail set with my hammer to start a hole so the drill bit wouldn't skidder (another word I just made up) all over the place.

All this was done on the spine as well.  Of course, the directions said to measure and mark the lid to make sure it was perfectly centered over the case.  I didn't do that.  I went by feel, which for me was much easier and would be far more accurate, made my marks, tapped, drilled.  Taped a little flag on the drill bit to ensure I wouldn't drill too deep.  My lid is dead on!  

We tightened down the hinges on the lid, screwed the other half of the hinge to the spine, tested for smoothness of action and made sure the hinge wasn't chewing up the cabinet.  It worked.  I don't understand it, but that's okay.  I don't understand discrete math either, and I've survived.

Not too shabby, huh?  Now, I know some of you are going to say, "Hey, you put the lid on in reverse.  That should be on the outside."  Nope.  The beautiful beveling in the wood should be seen when the case is open, not when it's closed.  These little instruments are not meant for performance.  They were designed to be practice instruments.  No one was going to see (much less hear) the instrument in a concert setting.  And when the instrument wasn't being used, it was most likely stored under a bed or somewhere else out of sight.  Fancy case as a piece of furniture not required.  Flash forward to 2013.  If you want to be authentic, you put the plain side out so that you open up with the pretty side facing you when you're practicing.  And even if you don't agree with my logic, there is actually one decent picture of the instrument supplied with the manual that clearly shows the lid attached as I attached it.  

Finally, I drilled some pilot holes for the little screw eyes that will be used with cord to hold the cabinet lid open.  I figured out the placement without too much hemming and hawing.  The cord is a piece of crap that unravels without any encouragement.  Zuckermann could save itself a penny or two and just leave it out of the kit.  I'll be buying something much more appropriate for permanent use.

Manual review for this section:  Include a lot more pictures from different angles because the written description about the hinges is clear as mother's milk, and the final look of the hinges is just wrong to my eye.  I've never seen hinges on a lid like this, but then I've never attached hinges from the outside to the inside before.  The hinges on the harpsichords were all on the outside, logical, a piece of cake.  Nevertheless, this appears to work despite being counter-intuitive to my artist's eye.

Next time I check in, I'll show the little music desk glued on.  

Back in the Saddle

Light breezes today presented an almost ideal setting for sanding the clavichord lid, which consists of five parts:  four sides which make up a frame and one center panel.  I disassembled the pieces and sanded each one thoroughly, starting with 100 grit, and then switching over to a medium grit sanding sponge block and finishing with a fine grit sponge block.  

I found a little dowel in my trusty pencil cup and used it wrapped in sandpaper to smooth up the cove moldings.  I have to say, I really love those soft sanding blocks.  Using the edge is perfect for the little carved edges of the frame.  The breezes carried away most of the sawdust.  What remained was cleaned up with a tack cloth.

The center panel is designed to float as temperature and humidity increase and decrease, so it will not be glued to the frame.  However, at this stage, I did glue three of the sides of the frame together, making sure the panel would still slide in easily.  After I varnish and wax, I'll finish the assembly and glue the fourth side of the frame in place (avoiding the surfaces where the glue will go).

  

I feel like I'm in the home stretch with the cabinet, and I guess I am.  Since I have built the stand, I don't need to bother with designing and carving some little feet for the instrument.  All I need to do is attach the music desk and attach the butterfly hinges to the lid.  Then I'll go over the cabinet once more with a sanding sponge before varnishing and waxing.  Stay tuned to hear all about it.

I'm baaack!!!

After a lengthy break which involved hunting for a new house, jumping through all the new hoops to get a mortgage, moving into said house, and trying to find some sort of part-time musical employment, life has settled down, and I actually put in a little work on the clavichord.  I'll admit to procrasination and for good reason.  Tiny parts involved, and I felt like all thumbs.  But, a simple procedure, really.  First, in order to make them true butt hinges, I had to whack the little brass darlings that hold the fallboard to the case with a hammer.  Next, I located where to place the hinges by using the blueprint.  Using an Exacto knife, I carved out a little niche on the case and the fallboard in which to nestle the hinges so they would be flush with the wood.


The manual said to use a sharp chisel which "demands care," but let's get real.  I'm not a skilled woodworker.  I have to work small and slow, and a chisel is just asking for trouble.  The little knife did just fine, thank you very much.  I then drilled pilot holes with my Dremel and the #57 bit and screwed four tiny little screws through the hinges and into the pilot holes.  I did a couple of these very successfully, but what a test of patience!  I called in my husband to help hold things steady, and while four hands and a flashlight directed under the hinge so I could see what I was doing did make it easier, it was still tricky.  When I was certain everything lined up and looked just right, I removed the hinges and put them away.  Can't slop Minwax all over the brass now can we...  Anyway, here are a couple more shots of my work.

The Stand

Just a quick post to show the clavichord atop the stand.  Ain't it purdy???

The next steps will lead to completion of the case as well as putting my artistic talents to work in creating some art work to identify me as the builder.  I'm looking forward to that!

Stand Assembly

Ah, yes.  The stand for which I fought long and hard.  It was a piece of cake to assemble! The legs, front and back aprons, and side aprons are held together with glue and mortise and tenon joinery.  After sanding the legs and apron with a fine sanding sponge, I did a quick dry run, then applied glue into the mortises (slots carved into the legs and apron) and inserted the loose tenons (little blocks of grooved wood).  When the legs and aprons are all joined up tight, those little tenons don't show.  Not being a woodworker, I'm totally unfamiliar with all these terms and methods of joinery, so I found it all very fascinating and rather gratifying to end up with a neatly finished stand where the wood pieces that contribute to its solidity are completely hidden. Very cool.  Although the manual didn't mention it, I pulled out the clamping blocks and rope that I used to make the case rim. This sucked all the pieces together very nicely.  Here is a picture of the stand with clamping blocks and rope in "dead bug" position while the glue dries.

I ran out of the Titebond glue halfway through, so I pulled out Aleene's original (and trusty) Tacky Glue which I have found to be one of the best glues on the market.  Why I ran out of the Titebond is a bit of a mystery because I had glue to spare when I built my harpsichords.  Although this bottle is much smaller than that supplied with my harpsichord kits, I am theorizing that the winter atmosphere here in Nebraska is so dry, I used more glue because it was setting up so fast!  Quite different from July in Chicago. Nevertheless, I am forging ahead with Aleene's.  I am incredibly happy that Zuckermann came through and finally sent me a complete stand after four years of patient effort.  Thank you, Steve. I am not mad at you anymore!

The Stand Arrived

Just a quick update here.  It only took four years, umpteen emails to Zuckermann, one anonymous phone call to see if their email was working, and about four months of effort from the Better Business Bureau, but I finally received a complete clavichord stand.  I did an immediate dry run to see if everything was there (oh please, dear Lord, let it all be there because I can't take much more of this), and I am happy to report that I finally have everything I need to construct a very expensive clavichord stand.  I am a happy camper.

A Good Shellacking!

Since the shellac needed to dissolve for at least 12 hours in denatured alcohol, I decided to skip ahead while the alcohol did its thing.  Sooo....

Now comes the case molding.  I don't use miter boxes on a daily basis, nor am I handy with a saw.  But considering my very limited skills, I think I did a decent enough job.  Here's an example of how my mitered corners came out using my fine-toothed Exacut saw.

I plan to fill the tiny little crack with some Famowood #1 Professional Wood Filler in red oak.  I've filled larger gaps and you couldn't tell.  In fact, I've repaired huge chunks and then filed and sanded the molding lines to match perfectly.  This was, of course, on a painted surface, but when the paint went on, not a soul knew, and I sure wasn't telling. The holes left by the nails I used to hold the molding to the case while the glue dried will be steamed shut when I can grab some time.

Then came the "dressing" of the soundboard.  That's fancy talk for wiping on the shellac. After a quick sanding with a super fine sanding sponge block, I took a piece of cheese cloth, dipped it in the shellac, and quickly wiped it on the soundboard.  It just glided on.  

I let it dry for over two hours and then drilled for the hitchpins, slanting the holes against the eventual pull of the strings.  The manual warns to not make the slant too severe so as to pop through the side, so of course I had to do the first one exactly like that.  Oops.  All the others went without a "hitch."  (That's a little clavichord humor.)  I didn't find that job nearly as boring as drilling the tuning pin holes, but of course, the bit was 1/16", and something that small zips through the wood easily.  And I don't believe I was drilling into oak, either! 

Then it was back to the soundboard which was given a second light sanding and a second coat of shellac.  Here's where the clavichord stands as of tonight.

No Chorus Line Here!

Tonight I finished drilling the tuning pin holes.  All I can say is they are not lined up like the Rockettes.  I'm telling myself that it lends "character" to my soundboard.  

I spread this drilling out over three evenings because I found it to be the most boring job yet.  Ugh.  I did not force the bit into that rock-hard oak, but used the weight of my Dremel to sink the bit into the wood 1-5/16" deep.  I went low tech and attached a little masking tape flag to my bit to tell me when I had reached the desired depth. The holes were drilled with an ever-so-slight lean toward the right case wall.  I found I had to do a lot of vacuuming along the way as the drilling generated an unbelievable amount of sawdust. After finishing that ordeal, I pulled out my Swiss Exacut, attached the fine-toothed saw, got my husband's little plastic miter box out and measured and cut the thin soundboard molding.  Easy peasy.  The manual makes a big deal out of how to spread the glue, but I found that a small (craft size) paintbrush worked perfectly to apply the glue along the right angle where the bottom and back of the molding meet.  I used just enough glue to spread out when I pressed the molding into place, holding them briefly while the glue set up. Voila!  Done.

Gluing in the Ribs and Soundboard

The ribs are glued to the underside of the soundboard and positioned by using the blueprint and carbon paper in various ways to eventually end up with rib outlines drawn on the bottom of the soundboard.  At that point, it's a matter of gluing the ribs into position and placing some flat weight on top of them while the glue sets.  I elected to use a square box of stained glass sample pieces and scraps as well as a couple kiln shelves and two five-pound weights.  The box was almost the exact size of the soundboard, so this worked perfectly.  The next evening, I scooped out the ends of all the ribs so they were down to approximately 1/16 of an inch.  My trusty Dremel with a sanding barrel zipped through those ends and made beautiful chamfers - not that anyone is going to see them.  But here are a couple of nice pictures of them.

My husband and I signed the underside of the soundboard and proceeded to glue it in place.  There is a huge difference between gluing in a large harpsichord soundboard in hot and humid Chicago and a small clavichord soundboard in the dead of winter.  Glue sets up fast when the board and the air are dry, so we had to work fast!

To shield the soundboard from being marred by the clamps, I took a wooden paint stick, cut it into four pieces, and used them to pad the surface.  Glue was spread all over the wrestplank, around the liners, and across the bellyrail.  I used spring/pinch clamps (newly purchased just for this application) in the mouse hole, and I used my c-clamps on the wrestplank.  

Along the other edges, I used 1/2x20 nails every three inches or so to hold the soundboard down on the liners.  These were placed close to the edge of the soundboard so that the decorative molding to come would cover them.  I handled the pinch clamps, and my husband handled the c-clamps as well as the nails (I was just no good with them), using our handy-dandy nail set.


All is drying now, and I plan to give it a good 24 hours before attempting to drill the tuning pin holes.

An "Aha" Moment

At 3:30 in the morning, as I lay in bed fretting about frets, it occurred to me that I might have misunderstood what the manual was trying to communicate. Tapping "toward the bass" could mean one of two things:

• the bass of the instrument, which would be to the left/west 
• the bass of the bridge, which would be to the south.

As I was visualizing the strung instrument, I was trying to figure out how in the heck pins would prevent the strings from riding up if they were bent toward the bass end of the instrument. In addition, by tapping in that direction, I was tapping along the grain of the wood and encouraging that crack.

If my musings were correct, instead of left-leaning pins, I should have been trying to create southbound pins, thus tapping against the grain and not encouraging the cracking. After all, the instrument is strung east-west, not north-south like a harpsichord! Doh! I should realize that if I can't make sense of something, it's probably because it's wrong.

A response from the manual's author confirmed all my suspicions.  So now I'll try tapping the pins again, this time in the correct direction and, hopefully, with better success.

The Bridge and Its Pins

This morning I glued the bridge to the soundboard, and it couldn't have gone any more smoothly.  That should have tipped me off on what was to come!  Every winter, we experience the shock of static electricity in the dry air almost every day.  But that's not enough to convince me that my soundboard is dry enough.  Having built my first harpsichord in the humid summer air of Chicago and seeing what a dry winter in Albuquerque's desert climes could do to it, I was taking no chances.  I parked my little soundboard in front of my oven door while I prepared to glue the bridge to it.  I have to say, I got the perfect amount of glue on the bridge, and the little guide holes with their padded nails went right into position without a single slip or misstep.  I nailed the bridge securely to the soundboard, using the bottom of the case as my sturdy work surface and observed the exact amount of glue squeeze I expected to see.  After allowing it to dry to a gummy state, I neatly scraped up the squeeze.  No problemo!  Looks like a million bucks!  

After allowing the bridge to dry about six hours, I tapped in the pins and ran my file across the tops of them to even them up a bit more.  Then the fun began.  The manual says to put a nail set or screwdriver against each pin and give it a tap toward the bass to create a 5-degree bend in each pin.  Huh?  Five degrees is barely a blip on the radar, so how on earth am I to know if I've been successful?  Plus, when I got to the mid-range of the pins, I saw the bridge threatening a hairline crack.  Well, crap.  I took some glue and worked it over the bridge between the pins where I saw trouble brewing.

I set the board aside and proceeded to scour the Internet for a close-up shot of a clavichord bridge.  Nothing helpful showed itself, so I googled the manual's author and dashed off a quick email to him.  I asked for clarification on where and how this bend is supposed to be.  I hope he answers.  

On the next run, I would suggest a decent picture of the bridge with its pins bent appropriately instead of one of the distant shots of a finished instrument where little of any use is seen.  Even a picture of a bridge pin all by itself with its little bend in it would be good.  I am a visual person.  

Tomorrow, I'll forge on ahead with the soundboard ribs.