Acknowledgements and caution

Before getting to the meat of the matter, credit is due to my principal sources of information:

• First and foremost, a certain harpsichord maker in New England whom I've known for more than a decade. He is of a retiring disposition and I don't know if he'd want me to put his name down here. Over the past six months he has been exceptionally generous and patient in answering a blizzard of emails I've sent. He also put me up when I came to visit him for a few days in August, answered still more questions, looked at my drawing and gave very helpful advice. At no time did he ever suggest that I was foolish or incapable of doing something this ambitious. Thank you, thank you.
• The book Cembalobau: Harpsichord construction by Martin Skowroneck. This legendary builder's reminiscences and observations about harpsichord building make up the book, which has the same text in both German and English. Available from amazon.de (the German-language site only; the book won't come up on the American site).
• The booklet Making a Spinet by Traditional Methods by John Barnes. As far as I am aware, this is out of print but the university library has it sitting forlornly on the shelf. I may be the only person that has ever taken an interest in it.
• The online harpsichord mailing list, HPSCHD-L. It's been going on for well over a decade, and although I haven't read it for a long time, I started doing so again back in the springtime. A forum for musicians, music lovers and harpsichord makers, it has searchable archives that have provided help, as well as a lot of conflicting opinions, on various matters. With judicious reading, it's possible to arrive at some kind of majority view on the questions that I've had during my research.

Finally, a caution: if you haven't realized this yet from the tone of the blog, I am not a professional instrument maker or woodworker, and my statements should not be taken as guaranteeing any success in this endeavour. I am documenting my thought process and work progress honestly, but I cannot say that I won't get into trouble as I build this instrument. I will rewrite the blog if I discover that something I said earlier led to difficulties later, but be warned nevertheless.