LEGO harpsichord

Click here to see a harpsichord built entirely with LEGO parts!

9-27

Here is a photo showing the 4' nut clamped in place. Whether gluing on a nut, a sharp, or the soundboard, the builders must gauge how much glue to use--too little and the bond will be weak; too much and they will have a lot of cleaning up to do as the glue oozes out the sides.

Paul continues to work on the keys. Here he is filing off the slight excess on the sides of the arcades.

Attaching the sharps goes fairly quickly. Again, with just the right amoung of glue, Angela positions the sharps onto the key levers. Once the glue has dried, the sides will be cleaned up as needed. The lower manual is nearing completion!

Class 9/27

Roman filling a bucket of water for the purpose of washing excess glue from the wrestplank.


The water is scalding hot!


Angela preparing to glue on sharps.

Class 9/27

John shows the keyboard team how to apply the sharp blocks. (Paul is holding a light below the keyboard so that John can make sure the sharp block is properly centered.)

The case team (here converted to the wrest plank team!) prepares to glue the nuts in place.

Elizabeth and Karen adjust the 4' nut.

John checks the alignment of the sharp blocks. We had followed the instructions to score a line along the back of the sharp before gluing it on, but we ended up with uneven front alignment. Since the glue hadn't set yet, John just popped off a few of the keys and I glued them back in place using the front ruler as a guide instead.


Today we also looked at real cow-hide glue (like my namesake would have used in the 1580's!) and discussed what we should engrave on the rose before we gild it.

keys!

Instructions to Keyboard People, week of 9/20.






I noticed that the arcades for the upper manual were slightly shorter than the keys - is that on purpose?



The sharps!

Rose

Here are some photos showing the rose hole being cut with a shop-made hole cutter. The hole did end up a bit large, but I have added a band of organ pipe metal around the edge of the rose to make up the difference.

The area between the hole and the pencil line will be tapered slightly.

The rose will need to be gilded before it is installed.



Here is Roman using the mylar plans to transfer the locations of the nuts. He and Elizabeth have begun to position them onto the wrestplank, and the 8' and 4' nuts will soon be glued in place.

New Pictures!!

Hi all! I thought it was about time I contributed some of my pics of what we've been doing in class and on our own. What we did yesterday was great! I actually got to saw out the hole for the rose!!! Yes, there is now a big hole in our beautifully planed soundboard. It's a little bigger than it was supposed to be, but that's ok. We can make it work! We were working on the nuts too, but they aren't quite done.

Elizabeth and Roman put the nuts in place. A close-up of the rose. Isn't it lovely??

Look! The rose! John is helping Roman nip off nails to hold the nuts in place.

Here is the harpsichord with the soundboard in place. How pretty!

Here is the harpsichord with a bunch of new stuff added, and Roman blowdrying the soundboard to shrink it into place!

Here are a few of us working on the keyboards.

Spacing the keys

Here's what we did on the manuals this week:

First we check the spacing and look for uneven gaps:



If a gap is a little too tight on one side, we bend the pin on the back end of the key:


And then sand out the mortise:


...replace the key...


..and check again. Still a bit tight! I'm working on that center pair of black keys.


I started sorting the arcades, but if anyone wants to arrange them differently (I did dark in the middle fading to light on the edges) they are sitting on top of the upper manual by the window. (Thank you, whoever taped them to that board!)

This week

On Monday we will install the wrestplank supports, something we ran out of time for last Wednesday; on Tuesday (if the weather is dry enough or I can dry the soundboard enough) we will finish fitting it to the case, mark it for the locations of the bridges, ribs, and cutoff rail, and start the tapering process

Pictures from Sept. 13

Jessica, Paul, and Jeff working on the manuals.


Elizabeth braves the power drill! (along with John, Roman, and Prof. Parkins)
I'm curious, since I'm over working on the keyboard I'm not sure what you all were going to be doing with the drill. What's happening with the case?

Hi!

I'm curious to know what happens with the soundboard on Monday and Tuesday - I don't think I will be able to come. It sounds like it will be pretty exciting.