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.
