Harp Completed...well, almost

Today I did the final rubbing out of the finish, assembled the neck/pillar to the shell and strung the instrument. The mono filament strings stretch incredibly, so it will require a lot of tuning. After the tuning stabilizes a bit, we will be able to install sharping levers, making it a full fledged lever harp.

Harp Progress

These past weeks have been spent sanding, finishing and now assembling harp #2. The finish is sprayed lacquer that is sanded and steel wooled to give the finish a satin luster. Hopefully I can rub the neck/pillar tomorrow and start stringing.

Regency Harp Progress

I have finally had time to get back to my harp building. The past 7 weeks have been very busy with piano tuning, for which I am thankful. Last evening I was able to glue the soundboard into the shell. Now I need to install the finish trim , final sanding and finish to complete this part of the harp. The neck/post are assembled and veneered, and also need to have final prep done before finishing. After everything is has been lacquered, it will be time to string....but that is a week or two away I am sure.

Life Interupted

It has been a long time since I last wrote. Less than a week after my last post I received a call from my wife saying the house was on fire....not the kind of call you want to get! Since the fire our lives have been turned upside down a bit. But the good new is that no one was injured. And we only had smoke damage on our half of the house. The interior of our tenants half of our house was totally destroyed. We were unable to live in our house for 10 weeks, and even though we are now living in our house, we do not have the use of our family room which housed our business office, and our wood stove. So life continues to be a bit interrupted, but life goes on, our God has been faithful to us in providing us with peace in the midst of the storm. Several attached photos shows the progress on our family room.

Shomacker Work Continues

Today, after making sure the plate was in proper position, I dry fitted the bridges to the board, and then dry fit the board to the piano rim. I was then ready to set the bearing. This is done by cutting notches in the oversized bridge cap to the level that I want to plane the entire bridge top to. This is done so that the level of the bridge top is slightly higher than the natural plane of the string when stretched between the upper and lower pressure points, thus creating down bearing on the bridge. This is a situation where I want enough down bearing, but not too much. Every rebuilder has his own recipe as to what that is. Mine shall not be revealed on this page! Also note the picture of the old and new board side by side.

Schoemaker Upright Board Pressed

Today I pressed the board for the Schoemaker upright. The task was pretty non-eventful. This was board #65. I need to get it and the bridges installed by the middle of the month.

Upright Soundboard Panel Glue Up Completed

After gluing up five parts of the panel each at 12" or less, these piece were run through the thickness planer to even up the joined edges. The next step was to glue these 5 pieces together forming an almost complete panel. The final step was to glue the small corner pieces into place. When dried to 5% EMC, I can begin fitting the panel to the piano.