Back in October I glued up the key panel, out of which the keyboard will be made. This consists of several 1/2" thick basswood boards 6.5" wide (the width of one octave) and of varying lengths to suit the 8-degree taper that the keyboard must have in order to fit inside the instrument. The key panel isn't a big deal at this early stage, but here's a picture anyway:
It still needs to be cut off straight (but at an 8-degree angle) along the back.
This will sit on the key frame, which is made of soft maple:
The key panel, when cut to size, will be almost flush with the front of the key frame and somewhat short of the back edge. At the back, the rack—that strip of maple sitting behind the key frame—will be glued on edge. This will have a series of vertical slots which will accept a metal pin driven into the end of each key. When the key is depressed, the pin and slot will ensure it moves straight up and and down.
The balance rail—the chamfered rail in the middle of the key frame—will be the pivot point for the keyboard. Each key will have a mortise punched most of the way through it from above, and a pin will pass through this mortise into the balance rail. This second guide point together with the rack will keep the keys moving vertically, without skewing sideways and touching their neighbours.
Back in mid-September, I visited A&M Wood Specialty again and selected a large plank of Alaska yellow cedar to use for the exterior casework of the harpsichord. I ended up with a board about 9 feet long, 10 inches wide and 1" thick (all rough dimensions). Since the moisture level of this board was a bit high, I purchased it and arranged to have A&M keep it for me until it dried out somewhat. By late November the board was ready to go, so I had A&M resaw and surface all the resulting pieces to my required final dimensions of 7.5" wide, 3/16" thick. They did an excellent job for an eminently reasonable fee of about $25. I ended up with 4 long resawn boards plus one thicker full-length piece that came from the original board when it was ripped to width. This will be used for mouldings, of which there are a great many on an Italian instrument.
Alaska cedar is a lovely wood of pale yellow colour and very subtle straight grain: it's quartered so the grain is quite even. It has an oddly herbal smell when freshly-cut, quite unlike the usual resinous evergreen fragrance. In fact it smells as if someone has been smoking pot somewhere nearby!
The case wood is thin, so the bentside can be made by simply shoving a board against the glue-smeared knees and clamping until the glue dries. Other sides are treated similarly, except that they need no bending. The numerous mouldings that go along the top and bottom edges of these boards will also strengthen them and keep them from being too floppy. A nice example—one of many in the Italian harpsichord tradition—of form and function being combined.
During the course of October and November, various items needed for the harpsichord arrived from various destinations: cloth padding of various types, boxwood plates which will make up the natural key covers, strips of ebony from which the sharps will come, maple arcades to decorate the front edge of each key, tuning pins, bridge pins, hitch pins, and so forth. I was lucky to have purchased all this stuff at a time when the Canadian dollar was skyrocketing to all-time highs against the US dollar. It also gained against the Euro, which helped offset the cost of buying things from Europe.
My sources are:
The Instrument Workshop: cloths, key covers and sharps, some specialty tools, plectra and strings.
Hubbard Harpsichords: maple arcades and specialty drill bits.
MicroMark: several small tools.
Marc Vogel oHG: brass and iron pins of all sorts, soundboard rose, soundboard wood.
The case wood is thin, so the bentside can be made by simply shoving a board against the glue-smeared knees and clamping until the glue dries. Other sides are treated similarly, except that they need no bending. The numerous mouldings that go along the top and bottom edges of these boards will also strengthen them and keep them from being too floppy. A nice example—one of many in the Italian harpsichord tradition—of form and function being combined.
During the course of October and November, various items needed for the harpsichord arrived from various destinations: cloth padding of various types, boxwood plates which will make up the natural key covers, strips of ebony from which the sharps will come, maple arcades to decorate the front edge of each key, tuning pins, bridge pins, hitch pins, and so forth. I was lucky to have purchased all this stuff at a time when the Canadian dollar was skyrocketing to all-time highs against the US dollar. It also gained against the Euro, which helped offset the cost of buying things from Europe.
My sources are:
The Instrument Workshop: cloths, key covers and sharps, some specialty tools, plectra and strings.
Hubbard Harpsichords: maple arcades and specialty drill bits.
MicroMark: several small tools.
Marc Vogel oHG: brass and iron pins of all sorts, soundboard rose, soundboard wood.
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