Finishing the case

The last two months have been spent finishing the case.

The first thing to go in after the soundboard are the moldings that go around the edge of the soundboard and the wrestplank.

You can't see it, but the tail hitchpin rail is there under all of those clamps.

The bentside hitchpin rail gets more clamps than anything else. I used a combination of the clamping blocks that were used for the soundboard installation to clamp downwards and C clamps to clamp horizontally against the bentside.

The wrestplank moldings were easy by comparison.

Here is what it looks like once everything is in place.

Now the holes for the hitchpins are drilled and then the cypress veneer that helps to create the illusion of an "inner" harpsichord sitting inside an "outer" case is glued to the inside of the case.

The lid has a piece of molding fitted along the curved edge of the bentside. This was steam bent into shape and clamped using a similar arrangement to the one that I used for the moldings on the case.

These brass hinges will attach the flap which covers the keyboard and the wrestplank to the main part of the lid.

The jackrail slides into a slotted blocks of wood that are fitted to the case. Traditional Italian instruments of this type have a rather elaborate scroll carved at the front of this block - something like this - elegant isn't it?
Well, actually, I happen to think that it is rather ugly - it is the one thing on Italian harpsichords that I really don't like and, since this is not supposed to be an exact copy of an historic original I intend to replace it with something simpler.
The picture below shows the jackrail support block as it came with the kit and two alternate shapes that I experimented with. In the end I went with the very simple shape at the bottom - just a rectangular block with a cove routed around the edge.

Here they are fitted to the cypress veneer that lines the inside of the case place.

The interior of the case gets painted first before fitting the last molding which runs along the top edge of the cypress veneer.

With the cap molding in place all of the cypress is finished with a rub on  blend of oil and varnish.

The nameboard fits in front of the wrestplank above the keyboard and the top molding on it has to be mitred to fit with the cap molding that runs around the inside of the case.

Here are a few more closeups of the moldings

Finally - all of the case woodwork is done.

Gluing in the soundboard

It has been almost 3 months since I last had a chance to work on the harpsichord but I finally managed to find enough time to get the soundboard glued in.

Putting in the soundboard is a major milestone but, particularly with an Italian instrument, it also has a certain sense of finality about it. Once the soundboard is in the inner structure of the instrument is completely inaccessible and  will, with any luck, never be seen again. 

I pinned the bridge a few months ago but I double checked everything and found 2 or 3 pins that were not in quite the right place - they weren't far off but it's easier to fix them now rather than risking problems later.

I also had to spend some time making sure that the ribs on the underside of the soundboard fit perfectly in the small slots cut for them in the liners and finally I had  to repair a small hairline crack in the soundboard.

Once all that was done I glued in the rose which comes from Gianluca Ceccarini and, finally, everything was ready.

Wooden blocks about 4.5" high are used to extend the reach of the F clamps down inside the case. As I discovered last time it is quite tricky trying to get 40 F clamps all lined up correctly in the short space of time that is available until the glue starts to set, so this time I went to a lot of trouble to make this as easy as possible. The wooden blocks have a slot cut in them so that they hook over the edge of the case which helps to keep them vertical - they also have a small groove cut into the outside edge of the block into which the bar of the F clamp fits and a circular hole on top into which the screw of the F clamp fits. This makes it very easy to get the clamps lined up correctly and keep them square.

There are 39 F clamps around the edge of the case and 9 C clamps in the gap between the soundboard and the wrestplank.

Total time from start to finish was just under 25 minutes - about 5 minutes to apply the glue to the soundboard and the liners and actually get the soundboard in place and then almost 20 minutes to get all of the clamps in place.

I left the clamps on for about 18 hours and then removed them.

 So far everything looks good - there was just enough glue squeezed out around the edge of the soundboard to reassure me that I had used enough glue but not so much that cleaning it up will be a probelm.

Next tasks are to trim the soundboard perfectly flush with the edge of the gap and then fit the soundboard and wrestplank mouldings.

Progress

Progress has been slow over the last couple of months but I am now almost ready to glue the soundboard into the case.

Here is the soundboard, with the bridge attached, resting in the case.

Closeup of the treble end of the bridge along with the molding that will eventually be glued to the edge of the soundboard. Things are really tight here and there is only 2 or 3 mm of clearance between the end of the bridge and the molding.

Closeups of the bridge after inserting the bridge pins.

There are four "ribs" glued to the underside of the soundboard to stiffen it - here is the second one being glued in place.

I also started the work of trimming the lid and flap to their final size. The flap needs to be big enough for a large cat to stretch out and go to sleep on it.

I trimmed the curved part of the lid by clamping it to the case and using a 1/2" router bit with an oversized end bearing to leave a slight overhang. Fortunately this is an easy cut to make from above because you are cutting with the grain of the wood. There were, however, a few places that needed to have almost 3/8" of wood removed so I made three passes over it using progressively smaller bearings and finishing up with a 7/8" bearing which left an overhang of about 3/16".

Here is the lid with the flap resting on top of it in the open position. I went to a lot of trouble to get both the flap and the end of the lid perfectly square so that when it is folded back like this the edges line up perfectly.

Bending the bridge.

The bridge is made of walnut and needs to be bent into a curve before it can be fitted to the soundboard. The instructions with the kit recommend soaking the bridge in water overnight but, based on past experience, I think that steam bending it will be easier and more effective.

The steamer is just a 6 foot length of 2" inside diameter black plastic drain pipe with some 1/4" wooden dowels used to support the work piece.

The form for bending the bridge consists of a set of small blocks screwed to a piece of wood along the curve that will be the eventual shape of the bridge.

After about 40 minutes the bridge is taken out of the steamer. clamped to the blocks and left to cool down and dry out for several hours.

Finishing the case

With all of the internal structure complete I spent the last week finishing the outside of the case.

This involves fitting wooden blocks - "staves" at the front of the case and all of the corners and a piece of molding along the bottom edge of the case. The "staves" are both decorative and functional - they reinforce the corners of the case and conceal the screws that hold the case together. The remaining screws are all covered by the bottom molding.

After my experience with the moldings on the Zuckermann case I was determined to find a way of clamping the moldings while they were being glued that used as few nails as possible. Nails are a very easy and convenient way of holding the moldings in place while the glue sets but I hate having to fill in the nail holes afterwards and am never quite satisfied with the results.

In the end I managed to do it all without any nails - it took a lot longer to do it that way but the result was worth it.

Here is the last piece of molding being fitted to the bottom of the cheek. The three clamps used here are complete overkill for this particular piece - I could probably have just held it in place with my hands for a minute or two and it would have been fine. They were, however, invaluable for doing the bentside molding which was the first piece that I fitted.



Here you can see the cheek to bentside corner stave and the bentside molding.

The corner staves are made up of two pieces of wood that are mitred together. The parts in the kit were pre-cut very accurately and did not require any adjustment. To keep the two pieces perfectly aligned with each other I treated this like the corner of a small box, laid them out flat - edge to edge - on the bench and used masking tape to hold them together. After applying the glue the pieces are folded up with the tape holding the corner edges together and the fitted to the case.

With the case finished I have moved it inside the house where almost all of the rest of the work on the instrument will be done.

Fortunately there is (just) enough space for all three harpsichords ...