Chapter 12: I'm Back! ... I think.

Stupid work stuff getting in the way this time! The trouble is I need the money to pay for little things like food so I can't see the stupid work stuff going away anytime soon.

Where were we?

Keyguides!

If you can remember the dim and distant past when I started this project and the photo of the supplied materials you may remember that the Keyguides came ready cut to shape. On the one hand it feels like a bit of a cheat but it does save a lot of measureing, cutting, and chiseling, so I'm happy to live with that! I've just given them a light sanding to clean up the edges.

Here is a photo of the complete Right Keyguide. It came in five parts and five screws.
At the bottom is the first three parts glued together. There is the Attachment Plate with the two screws that fix it to the Neck, the Lower Right Keyguide that has slots for both the bottom and middle rows of Keys, and running along the inside of the Keyguide is a Reinforcement piece.
The Upper Right Keyguide and the Right Top Cover Plate (see, it says so on it!) are attched to the lower keyguide with three screws so they can be easily removed to take the Keys out for maintainance and repair.
To be fair, with the slots pre-cut, there's not much to say about the construction here. Some care is needed drilling the screw holes as there isn't much room for error, and the Keyguides are very flexible until the Reinforcements are added, so take care to keep them straight.

Now a comparrison of the two sides on the Nyckelharpa with the Left Top Cover Plate removed. The Left Keyguide came in six parts with five screws.
The Upper and Lower Left Keyguides are glued together this time so the three screws only attach the Top Cover Plate. The Reinforcement piece was cut in two to provide the post at the Saddle end of  the Keyguide and the stepped part that runs towards the bridge end. The Attachment Plate is just visible in the bottom with it's two screws. The extra piece of wood is the Side Cover Plate that is glued to the outside edge of the Reinforcments. This covers the ends of the Keys and the slot can be filled with a piece of foam rubber to provide a return spring to the Keys.
The top of the Left Keyguide is about 4mm lower than the top of the Right Keyguide as the lower C string runs above the top of it. The Side Cover Plate is at the full height to hide this part of the asymmetry,

I have started making Keys! The top row has twenty Keys, the middle has ten, and the bottom seven, for a grand total of thirty-seven Keys to be made. As shown in the photo I have the blanks for the seven G string Keys carefully cut and sanded to size. Each Key is made to fit it's own individual pair of slots in the Keyguides so they are labeled G1 to G7 on the hidden end which I have also chamfered the edges of to make it easier to push the Keys through. The Keys must not be too loose in the guides or they will move around too much and the notes played will be out of tune, but they must not be too tight either as they must be free to release when you let go of them. Sören Åhker suggests a space of 0.3mm is an ideal starting point for the bare wood as the stain and humidity will change the wood later.

And here are the first seven Keys in their natural habitat. They still need a hole drilled for their Tangents and some shaping on the outer ends but it's a start. The first Key is about the right length I want for it but the other Keys will come out in a curve as you get closer to the Body so I have left them as they are for now. When I have all the Keys at this stage I will start on making that curve in all three rows before working on the tangents.

Chapter 11: I'm back!

As promised a little bit of normal life and a whole lot of my other big hobby have got in the way of progress here and have now pushed me past my originally hoped for completion date. Hey-ho. Keep going.

After much carefull measuring and placement I positioned and clamped the Top on to the Body and drilled a hole at each end to peg them together similarly to the way the Back was attached.

While the two were clamped together I laid a pencil on the side of the Body so the point was a few millimeters out on the Top and traced it all the way round. I also measured out 400mm from the Saddle on to the Top to marck where the Bridge will sit. This also allowed me to trace in the locations of the 'f' holes and the Bass bar. In the mean time I also marked the sugested loctaion of the sound post on the back. Best case scenario this is where I will put the base of the Sound Post and all will be fine, worst case it will give me a frame of referance for adjustments.

I drilled a hole though the end of each 'f' hole and then took out my best (read 'only') coping saw, replaced the blade, and cut out the curves between them. Makes it sound almost easy! Alright by comparison that bit was.

I wizzed around the outline with my bandsaw and made a trial of the final fit. There was some adjustment needed to the tops of the Sides to make sure the Top sat flat without the need of clamps.

I couldn't resist a trial fit of the parts to see how the layout looks.

Don't ask me why this picture is upside down! It's the right way round on my computer and phone, it only uploads that way here.

While you're standing on your head to look at it you will see this picture shows the homemade clamps I used to hold everything together while gluing the Top and Reinforcement Plate on.

Sadly I seem to have lost the photos of the carved Reinforcement Plate before gluing. It took some time with the bandsaw, then a razor saw, and finally files and sandpaper to create the shape.

Also I don't have a photo of the Bass Bar in place. The Bass Bar was supplied pre-shaped in the kit but I sanded the free edge to a smoother curve as that is how the drawings show it. It takes some force to clamp it to the Top during gluing as it has a slight reverse curve to it but still needs to lay flat against the underside of the Top. The Bass Bar provides support to one side of the Top where the Bridge sits, the other side has the Sound Post near by.

I started work on the Bridge by laying it on my belt sander and leaning on one end until the top was about 3mm thick and the bottom was about 6mm. Then I cut the curve across the top and the curves down the sides. The holes were drilled through and the coping saw made the pretty little curves. The photo shows how I sanded the bottom of the Bridge to match the top of the instrument. Simply tape the sandpaper to your Nyckelharpa and get the rhythm going!

 As it's getting late here I will finish off with this photo of the current state of work. I have made up the Keyguides and made the blanks of the first row of keys. Actually there are a few more keys started but they don't fit yet. Next time I will get some photos of the Keygides and show how they came together. Then I will have to get back to the project and make some more  progress before I can write the post after that!