Suggestions for first Clavichord build

[Ernie Miller]

Absolutely! If your plan calls for pins in the back rail to guide the keys, drill them while the keyboard and keyframe are still attached.

When I built my first harpsichord thirty years ago, I thought it would be my "one and only". As a result, I decided to make the arcades using forstner bits. They came out so well, that I stayed with them for all these years rather than have a custom bit made.

As for gluing the bridge to the soundboard, the traditional method is to use go-bars. Lacking a go-bar deck, you can nail the bridge down from the top, through the soundboard, and into your work table (as long as you don't mind holes in your work table). Place the completed bridge on your plan and make a pencil mark for each nail that will not coincide with a bridge pin. Cut enough small rectangular pieces of 1/8" thick scrap, like cut-offs from your soundboard, drill a hole in the center of each big enough to let the nail slip through, put the nail through the hole and use it to clamp your bridge to the soundboard/table. Don't forget to pre-drill a hole all the way through the bridge at each pencil mark, but not into the table below. After the glue has cured, break off the scrap wooden pads which will expose the nail head about 1/8" above the top surface of the bridge. That will allow you to grab the nail head with a pliers or vice grip and pull it out. After they're removed, glue a round toothpick into each hole and sand flush. The term "nails" is a misnomer in this case - they're really wire nails, about 1/16" in diameter and long enough so that they bury into the table at least 1/4". You can buy them at any big box store.

This picture should clarify my ramblings a bit.

21-8.jpg

Ernie

[John K Jordan]

What an amazingly interesting discussion!! I just found this thread and raced through it, now to go back and read every word. What a terrible thing to do to a guy - now I want to build one!

Phillip, if I may ask, was there something in particular that made you decide on the model you chose? (the Christian Gottlob Hubert 1784 clavichord?) Just looking around a little and the possibilities are overwhelming. I play piano and have done some repair and adjustment and rebuilt a player piano but I have never built any instrument from scratch. This is so tempting.

JKJ

[Phillip J Allen]

John,

I selected Hubert's clavichord since Alan Caro suggested it earlier on this thread, so I said what the heck! Lets try it! I am still in the planning stage and have to finish my girlfriends bar-cart before I start.

[george wilson]

A maid sucked off an arcade from an original spinet in Williamsburg with her vacuum(Another time a maid sucked nearly ALL the jacks out of an old Chickering harpsichord! The musicians managed to get them back in place since they had numbers on them.). The curators got me to make a new ivory arcade. It had an ogee molding surrounding a bottom with a curve ending in a little peak. I filed up a piece of saw steel and did the job in my lathe. Afterwards I "aged" the arcade with a little ground in grime made of a cigarette ash and some water. I took an original key and the newly arcaded key to the curators,and every one picked the new one as the original. Then,they got all excited and made me sign the repro with India ink on the bottom edge! I loved fooling those people.

[Mel Fulks]

I been told most of the damage to Williamsburg stuff is done not by tourists,but employees using vacuum cleaners.

[Ernie Miller]

Afterwards I "aged" the arcade with a little ground in grime made of a cigarette ash and some water.

Now you tell me - I quit smoking four years ago.

[george wilson]

I quit cold turkey when I was 45. But,I was in my 30's back then.

The key to properly aging stuff is to see what kind of crud it has. Different objects can have very different grime embedded in the surfaces. One trick I have learned when making ivory parts that must be aged,is to paint them with a VERY THIN coating that has a bit of lamp black in it. The slution is alcohol with a TEENY bit of shellac in it. Old things usually sat in houses heated with wood or ESPECIALLY coal. Ivory gets a nearly indiscernable coat of fine black dust on it. This added to the oil if it is a spinning wheel bobbin,and a teeny bit of yellow DYE,not pigment,from light shining on it for many years. Learning how to do ivory right is a process it took some time to master. Aging boxwood is the hardest thing I have done. Staining it doesn't make it,because decades of Sunlight turn boxwood brown,but NOT in the pores. Adding stain gets into the pores.

Here's an original bobbin with iron shaft and brass flyer I made compared to the original 18th. C. one. Metals are the easiest to age. I used Oxpho Blue gun blue from Brownell's on the iron and brass. That and heat.