Stringing

Today I finished stringing the dumpster special. It took a lot of time and patience. I also screwed and nailed the soundboard securely on to the liners around the cheek. The person who built it really screwed up the upper frames and the upper belly rail, as latter acutally sticks up. So short of chainsawing the frames and the belly rail, the soundboard would not be able to be correctly installed. The builder apparently knew that he or she had screwed up, so the builder decided to drill the soundboard onto the upper frame. Obviously this is going to create more problems later, but for an old lady like this harpsichord, I'll just leave the way it is, and "finished" what the builder tried to complete.

Another task I was going through was to assemble the jack rail properly, namely putting the damper wool on the underside of my home made jack rail. However, it cannot be completed until I have the jacks. Then I can decide whether I need to lay another layer of wool on the underside of the jackrail.

All Strung

Soundboard secured. I screwed in four new screws, two of which were screwed on to the liners of the cheek

You can see the the upper frames or part of the upper belly rail are too high, and forcing part of the soundboard to pop up.

The batten like wooden bar was what the builder installed on the soundboard so that he could put screws through the soundboard into the upper frames and belly rail. I have no idea why he miscalculated the height of the frames, or why he did not saw off the extra.

View from the right

Another view

The upper and lower halves of the jack rail. The wool is being glued to the underside of the lower half.

Wool now glued and cut. I also cut an extra wool strip.

Flip it over. The two halves of the jack rail are now glued together.

Jack rail inside the harpsichord

More to come...