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.

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.

Why be boring when you can have pizazz?

Happy Valentine's Day!  After the obligatory evening celebrations, complete with flowers, wine, and a little Cherry Garcia,  we settled into a comfortable evening at home.  Such is the cozy life of two people who have loved each other for over 25 years.  Since Harry's Law was the only thing I felt deserved my attention on the television, I concentrated on carving a little curve on the base end of the bridge in the hours leading up to the show.  The little flourish on the bridge was accomplished with the aid of some diamond drill bits from Harbor Freight, my Dremel, and an X-Acto knife.  First, I drew the intended shape with a pencil on the side of the bridge.  Next, I whittled a little dip in the wood, and when I had removed a sufficient amount, I used various diamond drill bits to get down to the intended shape.  Having never carved wood before, I approached this task with more than a little trepidation, but after thoughtfully gazing at the bridge from time to time throughout the day, I finally felt ready to give it the old college try.  The nice thing about the diamond bits and the Dremel is that one does not have to worry about aggressive action from the tools. They are gentle.  Nevertheless, in no time, the feat was accomplished.

I sanded the entire bridge with a fine sandpaper sponge and pronounced it finished.  I won't earn any awards for creativity in design, but I'm a simple girl, and this simple curve suits me just fine.

The Bridge

What a pain in the neck this is!  Well, part of it.  For starters, I positioned the soundboard under the blueprint, and made little cuts in the paper at the four corners so I could line everything up properly.  I then positioned the bridge on top of the blueprint as accurately as possible and drilled five holes with my #57 drill bit in my Dremel.  I drilled through the bridge, the blueprint, and the soundboard clear through to my work surface, taking care to avoid places where the future bridge pin holes would be drilled.  I managed to do well with two of them.  Three of them are pretty close to where bridge pins would go, so they will get filled later and then drilled to accommodate the bridge pins.  I drove five 3/4x18 nails through the holes. This would allow me to reposition the bridge in the exact same place, sans blueprint, later on.  I then took it all apart and, after placing a layer of Scotch tape across the blueprint where the bridge is drawn, placed the blueprint on top of the bridge and used the nail holes to hold the paper down.  My husband and I smoothed the drawing down, creasing it along the sides of the bridge.  Making a little tap with a nail, I marked the 56 places where I would drill holes for the bridge pins. This is the part of the task that's a pain.  The marks on the blueprint are small, the paper is large and cumbersome and not three dimensional like the bridge, and the area being marked is very narrow.  Tedious is a word that comes to mind.  After that was done, we rigged up the Dremel's drill press so I could drill 56 perfectly straight holes into the bridge at the precise depth needed.  I was doubly careful and also marked the bit with a little strip of masking tape. 

 

Yeah, overkill.  But I don't like to leave anything to chance.  When that was done I called it a day.

Promised Pictures

The majority of the case joinery is done.  All that is left is marking the hitchpin rails (made from cherry wood) and then gluing them down.  The following pictures may resemble several of my dry run pictures (as you would expect), but the difference is that all of the "guts" are now glued permanently into place.  Here's the whole magilla:

This is the pesky middle belly rail that had me a bit concerned.  Further down the road, we'll see if my worries were for naught.  This picture is shot from the bass end toward the treble.

This picture shows the right cheek with its liner and the middle bellyrail, this time shot from the treble end and looking toward the bass end.  That little piece of wood to the right of the bellyrail is the back bellyrail.  If you look closely, you can see the chamfer I carved in the rear liner.

Below is a shot of the tool box.  The lid fits very snugly indeed, so I may end up sanding it a tiny bit.  For now, it is sitting off to the side.

And finally, here is a picture of a bead of glue I ran down the seam between the belly rail and the cheek - just because.  It will dry nearly invisible.

So there you have it.  Dare I think I could have the entire instrument finished by summer?

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.

King of Sweden Double-fretted Clavichord

After a 30-year hiatus, I'm diving into instrument construction once again. The last two instruments back in the day were Flemish harpsichords. They are now in the hands of other owners. My newest venture is a King of Sweden double-fretted clavichord. Due to its compact size and the ease of moving it around, I'll be keeping this instrument for my own personal enjoyment. I wish I could recommend the company which manufactures this kit, but I'm afraid that since the departure of David J. Way (who later called himself D. Jacques Way), the Zuckerman Harpsichord Company has gone downhill in the area of customer service and satisfaction. With this clavichord, I also ordered a stand but only received part of it. I didn't do the parts inventory within their time frame (you know, folks, sometimes life intervenes) and came to learn that half the stand was missing. They refused to make good on it, so I will be paying a custom woodworker to construct the balance of the stand for me using what wood Zuckerman generously gave me for the big wad of cash I laid on them. The kit was also missing the bridge pins, and it took two e-mails and a little arguing to get them to send me some. So if you're interested in buying an early instrument kit, I suggest you try Hubbard Harpsichords. While I have no personal experience with Hubbard, they can't be any worse than Zuckerman. Yes, I'm being a little whiney, but at the price I paid for this kit and that stand, I think I'm more than entitled. If you do decide to try Zuckerman, inspect the kit immediately. Print out the parts list and go through everything to make sure it's all there. At least Zuckerman won't be able to pull the old "it's too late" routine on you. My plan is to give you a blow-by-blow description of the building process. Stay tuned.