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.

Trimming the Soundboard

Assuming "the soundboard will have to be trimmed" means "do it now," I set out to trim it down to size.  The instruction manual does not offer any hints on how one might accomplish that, so, taking no chances, I elected to use a cardboard template, an X-Acto knife, an Exacut with the wheel cutter attachment, and sandpaper.  The first thing I did was trace the shape of the soundboard onto a piece of cardboard and cut it out.  At that point I was able to slowly trim the straight "north" and "east" sides of the cardboard until it fit the case perfectly.  I then laid the cardboard template on the spruce soundboard and drew lines where the soundboard needed to be trimmed.  Laying a long metal straightedge along the line on the right ("east") side of the board, I cut a scoring line with the X-Acto knife. 

This cut went across the grain, so after cutting a good deep score, I switched to my Exacut with the wheel cutter attached to it and deepened the cut until it went through to the bottom.  Perfect!  I repeated the routine on the top, or "north" end of the board.  Since I was cutting with the grain, this took a fraction of the time.  The board was still (purposely) a hair too large, so I sanded the two edges until it fit perfectly.

Confession time.  When I glued the long hitchpin rail, I didn't notice that it was a fraction too long.  Two possible remedies:  try to trim/sand it or cut a small notch in the soundboard to accommodate it.  I chose the latter, and it looks fabulous!

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?

As If I Don't Have Enough to Do

Since I'm baking a lot of cookies for the holidays, I decided to start a cookie recipe blog at http://www.yummycookierecipes.blogspot.com/ and share the results of my baking adventures - good, bad, and otherwise. Many (but not all) of the recipes are from my grandmother's collection. She gathered recipes from friends, her sisters, and The Chicago Tribune. Since she died in 1972, many of the recipes I'll be sharing may qualify as "vintage." Give it a look now and again if you like cookie recipes. I promise to post more about my progress on the clavichord construction soon.