Keyboard 1

I am not even going to touch the soundboard for a couple of weeks but there is no reason not to get started on the keyboard.

The first thing to do is to insert the brass balance pins into the middle rail of the key frame. A small wooden block with a hole drilled through it is used to make sure that the pins all end up at the same height and are kept exactly vertical as they are being driven in.



A felt washer is placed on each pin ...


... and we can put some keys in place and start to line up the rear guide.

Each key has a small wooden "thumbnail" which fits into a slot in the back of the key and into the corresponding slot in the rear guide. Eventually these thumbnails will be glued to the keys and carefully shaped and filed so that they move smoothly in the guide but, for now, they are just pushed into the slots in the keys so that I can align the rear guide correctly.

Once the rear guide has been glued in place I insert all of the keys so that I can get an idea of how things are going to line up. At this stage nothing but the rear guide has been glued - the key tops for the sharps are just sitting in place so that I can see how well they are going to fit.


There is still a lot of work to be done to line up, adjust and balance each individual key but so far things are looking very good - the keys already appear to be very level and it looks as if most of the adjustments that will be needed are going to be very small.