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 ...

Fitting the liners

The liners run around the inside of the case and support the soundboard.



The liners and the walls of the case are supported by triangular blocks of wood called "knees".


Finally diagonal buttresses are glued in place to give additional support to the bentside.

Fitting the bentside

The most difficult part of assembling the case is fitting the bentside which has to fit exactly along the curved part of the base.

The bentside is steam bent on a form to approximately the correct shape but needs to be carefully clamped when it is glued in place.

A band clamp with a ratchet does most of the work but I also used several Veritas Wonder Dog clamps.

Here you can see the band clamp holding the bentside in place.

In order to get the clamps in the best position on the bentside the instrument had to be set at an angle on the workbench with blocks of wood clamped to the bench along the spine and the front edge of the case to hold it in place.



Here you can see how the Veritas Wonder Dogs were used to clamp the bentside along the bottom edge.

Almost ready to assemble - the masking tape makes it easier to get the glue in the right place.

A few minutes later and it is both glued and screwed into place. At this point the screws are doing almost all of the work of holding the joints together but I left all of the clamps in place overnight to give the glue time to reach its full strength.



Once the glue has set and the clamps have been removed the bentside is trimmed flush with the cheek and the tail.