Harp Sharping Levers

The harp has settled in now, so after 4 months I have installed the sharping levers. Had a good friend who also builds harps look at my harp last evening. His comments were favorable. Any guesses when I'll build my next harp? I have the major components for another one, but thankfully I have a lot of piano rebuilding work again, so it may be a while.

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 Shell Nears Completion

The stave harp shell that I am building is nearly completed. First the ends were trimmed to match the base and cap. Then three braces were constructed and epoxied into place. Finally the shelf for the soundboard was installed.All that remains is installing several screws to the stricture for added strength, and to cut out the sound holes.

Harp Stave Shell #2

Taking the lessons learned from shell#1 failure, I made shell #2 today. Still not perfect, but improved from #1. The following changes were made:
The thickness of the staves was increased from 1/4" to 5/16"
Stave #1 and #10 were cut to 3/4" end to end with outside edge at 90 degrees
Inside cauls were employed
Less tension was put on tape across the grain
The end dimensions across the top seem to be good, and the base is now closer to the desired depth. Now it's time to build the bottom panel, and bracing.

Enjoying The Harp

Now that my first harp is completed, my daughter and granddaughter are enjoying learning to play (I am learning too). I already have purchased the plans to build a larger five octave harp. My progress is going to be slowed down by a number of piano rebuilding jobs that will soon be beginning. But it is still fun to dream and plan. It is sometimes a shame that one needs to be gainfully employed to pay the bills!

Harp Project Completed

After the neck finish cured, I rubbed the entire neck and sound chamber with steel wool and wax to give the harp a satin patina. The holes were drilled to receive the guide pins and tuning pins. I chose to use piano tuning pins rather than the harpsichord pins supplied with the hardware. Installing the nylon strings was a bit different than music wire. Tuning the new strings and adding tension to the soundboard is some what frightening. Will my board design withstand the tension? Time will tell, but so far it is holding, although it has bowed upwards about 1/8" in the center. I am having a bit of trouble with the knots at the end if the strings sliding. I applied a drop of super glue to the knots and hopefully that will stop the sliding. The tuning pins require a fair amount of strength to move, but I am sure they will loosen up with time and use. I hope to take the harp and my grand daughter to meet the Cumberland Valley Harp Circle this Sunday.

Harp Neck Finish

Today I hope to complete spraying lacquer on the harp neck assembly. After the lacquer hardens a few days, I will be able to rub it with steel wool and wax, and then drill the holes for the guide pins and the tuning pins. Then I will mate the sound box and the neck assembly. The final step is to install the strings and tuning.

Harp Pillar and Neck United

I've taken advantage of the holiday to spend some time working on my harp project. At the end of last week I glued the top to the sound chamber. Today, I fist dry fitted the neck and pillar to the sound chamber. Upon doing so, I realized that my string speaking length was about 3/8" to long, so I made the necessary adjustments to get the length to spec. I accomplished this by cutting the neck deeper where it attaches to the sound chamber, and also by shortening the pillar. While this was happening, I have been spraying lacquer on the sound chamber. Today I also ordered a round embossed applique to place on the neck. Finally, I glued a build up on the end of the neck that rests on the top of the sound chamber.It's starting to look like a harp!

Harp Soundboard Glued To Sound Box

Completed sound box.
When I was ready to glue the soundboard to the sound box, I intended to use my pneumatic press. The box is too thick for my press, so I needed to use bar clamps. I still used the pneumatic press for a base for clamping up the soundboard. Note that the soundboard loner also has brass screws securing it to the box. This assures me that the soundboard will not come off the box when the harp is under tension.

Harp Soundboard Trim

Trim piece being glued on top side of board.



The underside of the soundboard and reinforcement bar coated with lacquer.


After gluing the reinforcement bars in place, the final step on the soundboard was to install trim pieces on the edges of the board. These serve two purposes. One is cosmetic. I used walnut for the trim pieces because it is a pretty contrast in color to the spruce. Secondly, the trim pieces are similar to the bind bar in the piano. The glue surface is narrow, and the trim pieces add strength and a reflective quality to the edge of the soundboard. Screws will also be used to secure the soundboard to the sound box.

Harp Soundboard Reinforcement Bars

Since my harp soundboard is made of solid spruce, it will require some reinforcing bars. I have added two, one on top and one on the underside of the harp. The underside bar of maple, and is tapered in width as well as in thickness, being the thickest and widest at the bottom. The top is an exact match, but is made of walnut for cosmetic purposes. One of my innovations (this is not customary harp building) was to attach two spruce ribs to the top reinforcing bar. This is a take off from my piano soundboard building. Note that on a piano the ribs are on the under side, while on the harp, I placed them on the top side. This is because on a piano the pressure of the string are pushing down, but on the harp, the pressure of the strings are pulling up. The purpose of the ribs is to produce an internal stress on the soundboard that in turn produces a slight crown. The theory is that this enhances the sound produced by the board. It works in pianos. We'll see if it works in harps. The first photo is gluing the ribs to the top reinforcing bar. The second is gluing the reinforcement bars to the soundboard in my piano soundboard press. Note that the soundboard was dried to 5.5% EMC before the reinforcement bars were glued. This is an important matter that is often overlooked, as the soundboard does change dimensionally as the wood dries (more piano influence on my harp).

Harp Soundboard

It's great to be able to apply some of the skills I've learned in piano rebuilding to harp construction. This past week, I built my first harp soundboard from left over sitka spruce piano soundboard material. Since the harp soundboard is thinner than a piano soundboard, it is possible to plane the thicker material to harp dimensions. This is a solid board, not laminated. I was advised against using solid spruce, but as a piano rebuilder, I can't stomach the idea of a piece of plywood being a sound board. The harp board is 1/4" thick at the bottom, and 1/8" thick at the top. The pieces of spruce were about 4" wide before gluing. Each piece was planes slightly thinner than the previous piece to achieve the taper in thickness. After the panel was glued up, the bottom was sanded flat, while the top was not only tapered from bottom to top, but the edges were also feathered. This is a true soundboard.

Harp Sound Box Glued Up

Progress on my harp project is slow,but sure! Today I glued the sound box sides to the back, and also installed the bottom. The next steps will be to install some bracing and then to make the soundboard.

Harp Back Glue Up

The plans for my harp call for the back and soundboard to be made of plywood. Being a long time piano rebuilder, it goes against my grain (no pun intended) to use plywood anywhere in a musical instrument. Plywood would be stronger and less likely to crack, but I believe solid wood makes for a better sound. So to make the back, I took a piece of 1" X 7" rough cut walnut lumber and resawed it to 1/2" thickness, then planed the two pieces to 3/8" thickness. The pictures show the two pieces being edge glued together. Because the two pieces came from the same board, I book matched the pieces, which makes for a very beautibul grain pattern on the panel. After the glue has dried, I will plane the panel to 1/4" thickness, and cut it to match the pattern.

Harp Project Begun

I have a five year old granddaughter that is facinated with the harp. So being the wood working loving grandfather that I am, I have begun making a lap harp, to be completed for her September birthday.I purchased plans from Musicmaker's Kits, who provide a variety of musical instrument kits/plans for the woodworker. Rather than tracing the patterns from the plans onto the wood with carbon paper, I chose to have the plans duplicated and then proceded to make wooden patterns that I can trace onto the wood. I have a good supply of rough cut walnut, some nearly 2" thick, which is perfect for the pillar and neck. I plan to deviate slightly from the plans by applying some piano rebuilding principles aand materials to harp making. Time will tell if I am successful.