Chapter 4: More Preparation...

but finally some woodworking has been done!

The events depicted here happened a week ago, I just haven't had time to get it typed up.
The good news is that I can promise that the next instalment will contain the actual begining of work on the actual wood that will hopefully become an actual Nyckelharpa!

The Top Panel of the Nyckelharpa has to be bent in to a curve before being cut and fitted to the Body. In order to do this you need two things: A form to bend it on, and an hour of hot water or steam to make it flexible.

I'm still thinking about the second part, but the first is almost done.

 Built out of a 600mm by 1200mm sheet of 18mm thick plywood from the local DIY store is this:

The deck is 250mm wide by 600mm long so it is just bigger than the sheet of wood that will be the Nyckelharpa's Top.
The rest of the plywood was cut in to six 150mm wide strips.
One strip was then cut in to three 150mm by 200mm rectangles. These and two of the complete strips then had slots cut in them so I could put them together to make the base of the bending form. This will give me a very strong structure.

The remaining three strips of plywood were cut in half to make six 300mm by 150mm pieces. I glued these together in three pairs. These pairs were drilled so I could bolt them all together for cutting the curve. As they are too thick to go through my bandsaw in one go I put two pairs through together, then swaped out one of the pairs so I had a guide to cut the last pair.

The idea is that I have three wide, curved forms to attach to the table I already made, and the other parts could be bolted together to form a sanding block for shaping the Nyckelharpa Main Body to fit the top.

Unfortunately, as you can see, my curve cutting skills aren't quite up to scratch yet, so now I need to correct the final line before putting it to use.

I also had the idea that if I made the curve forms removeable I could use the plywood table as flat surface when it comes to glueing the Nyckelharpa's Main Body parts together. I drilled through the tabletop and curves and fitted 8mm diameter wooden dowls from the local DIY store to make this work. The dowls are a tight enough fit to hold together, but loose enough that I can pull the forms off without much effort.

When I have worked out how to steam or boil the wood and have it flexible I plan to lay it on top of the forms and use ratchet straps to pull it down to the correct curve.