Harpsichord #1: I started it 10 years ago

Well, this all started 10 years ago. I started my first musical instrument and ended up getting in way over my head.

My ego, knowing no bounds, thought if I was going to put so much time into a project it may as well be the best. Well, to make a long story short, my ego got the best of me and I gave up after about 6 months of work. Way over my head!

So after 10 years and two other small keyboard instruments I am finally ready to finish my masterwork.

This part of this blog will show the work I did 10 years ago.

If you are interested here is a tour of all the parts in a harpsichord: http://zhi.net/instr/tour.shtml

First of all this is what I planned to build

Now I didn’t have any plans just a lot of studing and a lot of pictures. The following pictures were scanned from photographs since this was before digital cameras.

You also get to see the “shop” I had when I was in California. I had a solid core door for a workbench and it also serves as a tablesaw extension. The problem was that I had to open the garage door to use the saw.
I shared the garage with a washer, dryer, sink and water heater.

I started by laminating up the “bentside” out of poplar. Here you can see the fixture I made for the purpose.
All that work goes into a fixture and you throw it away after using it once!
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Here are all the parts for the body. You can see some of the pictures I used to figure out the internal bracing on the table.
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And here you can see them mocked up
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Then the clamping. I used dowels drilled from the outside for strength, as well as angled finger joints at the small end, again for strength. The large thick piece of wood is white oak, That gets 171 holes drilled into it for all the tuning pins. It is morticed into the sides once again for strength. There are 171 strings trying to pull this part out of the frame!
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Here it is complete. You can also see the “registers” in front of the oak slab. More about them in the next installment.
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Here you can see the oak covered up with spruce, and the two “nuts” installed on top of that
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Next I glued up the soundboard. The most expensive part of the project. I think it cost me about $200, 10 years ago. It’s made up a about 5” wide pieces of Sitka Spruce. Straight grain, quarter sawn with 18 to 22 rings per inch! It 1/8” thick and thinned to 1/64 along some edges.
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Here I am fitting the soundboard to the case.
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Here is the backside of the soundboard with the 4’ Hitchpin rail, cutoff bar and soundboard bars glued on.
See the like above for a drawing of what they are.

You can also see my planer and sander on the floor. I only had room to do one thing at a time.
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Here is a front view with the 4’ and 8’ bridges attached. They are made of beech and have a triangular profile as well as being tapered in height. The were steam bent into shape. I started with three of the large ones in case I screwed one up.
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This is the part that got me frustrated with the whole project and made me give up. The keyboards. Not knowing any better I made them from poplar, and after having cut out the keys, they started twisting and bending over time. I should have used basswood.
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Here it is with the soundboard installed. You would be surprised just how much that soundboard can grow and shrink with humidity. About 1/2” in width! I would measure it daily to track it’s width and after about a month I basically know how much it changed. Then I waited for it to be in the middle before I did the final fitting and install.
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This is the way it stood for 10 years. Next time I will show my progress to date.

Gary

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.