Chapter 19: It speaks!

Yes, you read that right! I have had two out of tune notes out of my Nyckelharpa!

I haven't got as far as properly fitting the strings yet, but it is getting close.

The first job was to clean up the nasty looking underside of the Tailpiece so I spent about an hour gently dapping various bits of it against my belt sander and then another few hours of sanding by hand. I'm not sure what wood it is (maple, beech, and rosewood are Sören Åhker's suggestions) but it is definately a very tough wood.

The next job was to get the hook cut out and matched up. I did some guesswork by holding the Tailpiece along side it's intended destination and cut most of the spare wood away from the Body so I could sit the Tailpiece in place. Much carefull grinding with a file and sandpaper on a metal plate followed until I got to a point that looked roughly correct.

Before putting tension across the Bridge extra support is required for the Top, so the Soundpost is now required. The Soundpost is a 9mm diameter wooden dowl that fits between the Bottom and Top of the Body near where the Bridge sits on top.

I started by finding one of the formers I used to bend the Top. I spent a great deal of time measuring out where the Soundpost would sit and drilled a hole through the former in that spot.

I measured the required height for the Soundpost, pushed it into the former up to the mark and then used my Japanese flush cutting saw to cut the end off. This left the end of the Soundpost curved to match the Top. It doesn't show in the photo but the wood grain of the Soundpost must run across the Nyckelharpa.

I marked the shorter side of the Soundpost with a line so I could use it as a marker for positioning. Before I glued the Body together I drew a cross on the Bottom that marked the sugested starting point from the plans. I then used my bent-nosed spring-loaded tweezers to position the Soudpost and was very happy to find it sits in place all by itself as I am told it should. At this point there shouldn't be any need to force the Soundpost into place as the pressure will be applied when the Strings are fitted and push down on the Bridge.

Then came the great moment when I fitted the A String and Lower C String! The Bridge must be positioned 400mm from the Saddle as the Keychest is designed for the Keys to be in the correct locations for this length. The Strings have a metal bead at one end to hook into the grove in the Fine Tuners. This was only a tempory fit to put the correct angle of tension on the Tailpiece to help with adjusting the fit of the hook, but I couldn't resist plucking the Strings to see what it sounded like.

Now I know where the Tailpiece wants to sit.

Somewhere in all that jolity I found time to fit the G Keys with their locking pegs. The A and C Keys are held in by shoulders against the Keyguides, but the G Keys don't have these. Instead I marked the Key with the position of the inside of the Keyguide at rest, then drilled a 4mm hole all the way through the Key. I then drilled a 6mm hole two thirds of the way through for the 6mm dowl I have cut for the pegs. The peg has been cut to match the line on the Key and fits in the hole. The peg won't ever fall out the bottom because of the step, and they won't be able to go up because the C Keys will be in the way. The small hole in the bottom means that if the top of the peg gets snapped off I can still push the remains out of the Key.

I have also cut the grooves in the Saddle for the Strings to sit in. The Strings are 4mm apart from each other and the larger spaces leave room between the Strings for the Tangents from the Keys. And this photo also shows the first G Key with it's peg in place in the bottome right corner.

Using the Saddle as a guide I have also cut the grooves for the Strings in the Bridge. The four Playing Strings just get a little groove while the Sympathetic Strings are cut about 3mm deeper so that the Bow will only touch the Playing Strings.

Well there we are again. It's getting so close to finishing now.
I still need to think of a way of drilling out the holes in the Tailpiece for the Sympathetic Strings, before stain and varnish can be applied to the Body. And then it just needs the Keys trimed and shaped, and their tangents made to be fully finished. There is a minor possibilty that I might be able to practise open string Bowing by the end of the year!

Chapter 18: Nyckelharpa goes for a ride.

It's been two months since the last blog entry. The first of my two deadlines has passed unsuccessfully. But progress is being made!

Having already got the seventeen straight A Keys roughly cut to shape I went to work on the three 'Bent A Keys'. These are keys 11, 13, and 16.

This photo shows the three keys at different stages of cutting along with a straight key. The top key has not been cut yet but is drawn out ready to go. The second key has been cut down to it's widest width where it sits inside the Keychest and the excess height has been cut away. The third key has been fully cut down to roughly the correct shape similar to the state of the rest of the A Keys. The outer button of the key still needs cutting to the required 'S' shape curve.

All three Keys after their rough cutting were drawn up for the 'S' curve...

and then cut to shape. Again they are shown with a straight key for comparison. The curve is required because there isn't enough space in the row for a usefull sized button face because the keys are too close together. The curve means that the face of these Keys is at the same level as the C Keys on the row below.

This shows the C Keys all in, the three Bent A Keys, and one straight A Key sat in place to demonstrate.

Then followed the long tedious task of going through each of the twenty A Keys and carving and sanding the contact areas down so they fit in their slots and move freely. Take a little off at a time, try fitting the Key, see where it binds, and try again. The Keys are now fully fitted at the front, but the back is 2mm shorter than the front so there is a lot of work to do that end yet.

There will now be a short intermission.

With a beginner's lesson planned with Vicki Swan and a request for the appearance of my Nyckelharpa I realised that a safe means of transport was required.
Having looked around on the internet I found two possibilities readily available:
Bass Bags make a Nyckelharpa bag that I saw several people using at the Nyckelharpa weekends in Halsway.
Pelli Storm make a case that is the appropriate size and Vicki Swan has a Youtube video where she demonstrated using it for airline travel. I have found you can get it cheaper on eBay.

For me I feel that I need something a bit more durable than the Bass Bag as I want to be able to put it on the back seat of my car and put other lugage around or on it. Sadly the Pelli is too long to go on the back seat of my car.

I got out my roll of lining paper from B&Q that I use for drawing larger designs and started work on my own box. I measured the back seat of my car to get a maximum external length and width for the box, about 110cm by 45cm. I allowed for a 2cm wall and 2cm of foam, and placed my Nyckelharpa on the drawing in one corner. I was then able to draw in space for Bows, a Strap, Rosin, and I have a corner set aside for a small toolbox aswell. The drawing also allowed me to reduce the size of the box to try a save some weight and space.

I then set about various lengths of wood with the acursed band saw and then dowled them together. Hinges were fitted to the back of the box to attach the lid. So far I have glued the arched lid parts together but that's it, time caught up with me again!

Here is the box as it stands externally. It was held together by the dowls and a ratchet strap for it's maiden voyage, and the interior was a bit of a bodge with a sheet of foam cut to hold my Nyckelharpa in place. At the moment it will go on the back burner again while I continue work on the Nyckelharpa, but it is included in the March deadline to keep things interesting.

I had a very enjoyable day with Vicki at my beginner's lesson. She started with her introduction to the instrument and showed us how to hold / carry a Nyckelharpa and Bow. Through the rest of the day we were given three songs to learn.
Perry The Partridge
The Jingling Keys
The Bluebell Line
Sadly I had done a stupid amount of time at work in the previous week and was so tired I wasn't able to concentrate as much as I would like to be able to learn to play a song. The good news is that I have learnt a few things about playing a Nyckelharpa, and I need to do some exercises with my left hand as my fingers aren't used to that idea yet. On the whole it was a good fun day that I would recommend to anyone who wants to learn this instrument.

Intermission over, back to work...

With a week off work I wanted to concentrate on getting the Tailpiece progressed.
Having already cut it to the required outline I started by taking it out to see my belt sander so I could get the top rounded off to the correct curve. I then had to make a block to guide the drill through at the correct angle to make the 5mm holes to fit the Fine Tuners.

I marked where the holes sould go with a punch. I drew a line across the face of the Tailpiece to show the angle I wanted the hole to be, and drew a line back to the centre of the hole. The block met the drill press to get a verticle hole drilled through it and similar lines were drawn on it. I put the drill bit through the block and found the punch hole in the Tailpiece. The block's position was adjusted until the lines all made one straight line as shown in the photo and then I drilled through. This was done eight times in all as I did the first four holes with a 2mm drill bit to make sure I was on target before opening them up with the 5mm bit.

Here we are with the four holes done. I trial fitted the Fine Tuners and found that the Tailpiece was too deep at the holes so we had to go back to the beltsander to loose some weight.

The result wasn't quite as pretty as I would like so a bit of sawing and carving followed.

Much better. I'm still not quite sure how I want to work the transition from the neck to the head of the Tailpiece but the currently important area is ready for a trial fit of the Fine Tuners.

First off this is a pair of Fine Tuners as they come. You get a tuner, a nut, and an adjuster for each as shown on the right. On the left is all three put together with the adjuster at full reach. The tuner is designed to fit through a 1cm thikness of wood with 6mm of thread above for the nut to screw on to.

And here is the Tailpiece with all fout Fine Tuners in place. Three are at their slackest position, with the bottom / left one at it's tightest position. Well it's all looking good so far! And we're up to date.

The Tailpiece still needs holes drilling for the Sympathetic Strings, that under side made more pretty, and the 'hook' properly shaped. The Nyckelharpa Body needs it's tail shaped to match the Tailpiece. The Keys still need more carving to make them look better. Then it just needs sanding, staining, varnish, and strings! The list is getting shorter! Yay!

Chapter 17: Happy birthday!

Ouch. Today is the second anniversary of this build blog. And I wanted to be done in eight months!

It has been a reasonably productive week.

First I have done the first pass of work on the 17 straight 'A' Keys. That way I can start doing the quiet work of fitting them in the evenings. Next job is the Tailpiece.

There needs to be at least a 96mm length between the Bridge and the Fine Tuner mounting points to allow for the Strings windings, so some carefull measuring has to be done. Also there needs to be a hook at the bottom of the Nyckelharpa's body.

An hour of setting up the band saw cutting an inch, resetting the band saw, cutting another inch, putting the blade back on the band saw and cutting some more followed. This is tough wood and my band saw would appear to be unequal to the challenge, or I need better instructions on how to set it up!

 Now I have cut the side profile on the band saw you can see what I mean about the hook.

After the second trip to the band saw it now looks much more like a Tailpiece. There is still a lot of shaping to do but at least I don't need to fight the band saw again!

The sacry thing here is the size of that hook. I'm told that each of the sixteen Strings is going to have a tension of about 10kg on them. 16 x 10kg = 160kg. That's the weight of two household washing machines! So, theoretically speaking, I need to be able to dangle two washing machines off that hook!


In honor of the second anniversary I thought I'd make a comparison.

This is how we began two years ago! All those bits of wood laid out so nicely.

And the comparison view today. There's just the three remaining 'A' keys, the Tangents, and the Sound Post to cut down (I can get two out of the supplied piece of wood), and the Strings to fit.

That's it for this time. I'm off to carry on the celebrations and we'll see how things go over the next few weeks!

Chapter 16: Where did I leave my keys?

As I am now getting ready to think about transporting my Nyckelharpa I have started working towards getting the outlines marked out.

The first move was to use a cello peg reamer to open out the straight drilled peg holes in the Neck and Reinforcement Plate. One small note for future plans: I had the holes drilled out to 8mm, but it would have saved me half an evening if I drilled them out to 10mm first. Hey-ho.

Ok, so I cheated. I bought ready made Cello Tuning Pegs because it was a lot cheaper than buying the tools to shape the wood blocks I have. I have also push fitted the two rows of Guitar Tuners for the Sympathetic Strings. This means I can now start working out what size transport case I need.

I have found my Keys! I took the Left Keyguide (top in the picture) off and worked my way along the one end of each of the ten 'C' Keys. The Keys were roughly cut down to shape on the Dremel saw and then I cut and sanded them down to fit the slots. They need to be loose enough to slide freely and account for any humidity that might cause them to swell and get stuck.

Then I started the same process at the other end. Exciting isn't it! Alright - maybe not. Once I had the first key done I had to test fit it properly of course!

In just a week I was able to get all ten 'C' keys fitted at the other end too. The finger ends need some tidying up especially 8 and 9 that are almost touching each other. It is traditional to make pretty shapes out of these and I'm not planning on skipping that although I might not get too over the top with it.

Now I have to start the whole process again with the twenty 'A' Keys, three of which present their own special challenge of crossing the two layers of keys. That said, I think I'm going to be concentrating on the Tailpiece for the next week and then I'll face the 'A's.

In other news; Last weekend I went to Halsway Manor again where Vicki Swan was hosting a Nyckelharpa Festival Weekend. This provided an oppertunity to meet like minded people and see a concert by the very talented Josefina Paulson and Torbjörn Näsbom. I think it might a while before I reach their level!

Speaking of which... Having played two notes on a Nyckelharpa in March, I now have a first lesson booked for 18th November, and I'm booked in for Vicki's Beginner's Weekend at Halsway Manor in March.

In the mean time let's see what the next week brings.

Chapter 15: Shock and awe

I know it's a bit scary having another entry in the this blog so soon after the last one but that's not all, it's good news too!
I have found the time to get the new Top and Bass Bar all glued up, and we're back on course to carry on from where I left off in... March!? Hell... It's been five months again!?

Here's a giggle for you all: I'm setting two new deadlines for me to miss. Having got so good at missing my deadlines on this project I thought I'd get some more practice in. I know it's weird having two deadlines for one project but the first is a bit tight so it needs a backup plan!
Deadline One: 18th November (assuming my holiday request is allowed). That gives me three months to finish making the Keys, carve the Tailpiece, and stain, decorate, and varnish the whole thing.
Deadline Two: 22nd March (holiday request granted but not signed off yet). That gives me seven months.
Place your bets.

Meanwhile back at the workbench:

Making a new top to replace the old was actually quite easy. Partly the whole 'been there, done that before' aspect, but also I just laid the old top over the new one and traced everything. First I drilled out the holes.

Then I used my Dremel to cut the pretty shapes.

I drew in the line to mark where the Bass Bar sits...

and introduced it to it's new home. If your eyesight is better than mine you will notice that the ends of the Bass Bar don't sit right down on the underside of the Top. This is intentional. I believe it creates extra upward pressure against the Top where the Bridge rests above.

The Bass Bar is then persuaded to stay put while the glue sets. I used the same glue as before because it worked very well at holding the Bass Bar down last time. This was left for two days just to be sure that it was going to have plenty of time to set properly.

Well there's a surprise... it worked!

After taking a lot of care (almost a day's worth!) to make sure the fit between the Top and Body was right this time they where glued together. The edges of the new Top need a bit of tidying up, but I think we are getting there. (If you know where 'there' is let me know!)

And finally I have refitted the Keyguides after making sure they fit over the Top.

So there we are. A bit more sanding to make the edges look better and the accident has been repaired!

Now where did I put those Keys?

Chapter 14: I think you'll all agree...

... that shtuff just went sideways in the most colossal way.

I haven't even finished it and it already needs repairs!

I sat down to do some more work and noticed that the seam between the top and side had separated. As I gave it what I though was a gentle poke the back corner gave way and split the top. As a result I have spent some time sulking and deciding what to do next.

In the mean time it has given me the opportunity to show off the Bass Bar that I managed to completely miss out of the blog during the build earlier.

The Bass Bar runs at a slight angle to one side of the centre line so the it runs under one side of the Bridge. The clue in the title is that it runs under the lower tuned strings. The other side of the Bridge is supported by the Sound Post.

The good news for the blog is that I have chosen to order a new top and carry on. Obviously this has all been another excuse for why it's taking so long, but I think we're getting used to that.

The new top has already had it's bath and been bent to the curve as before.

I hope to have it cut, Bass Bar attached, and glued down by the end of the week. But we know how that goes.

Chapter 13: There will now be a short intermission.

"SHORT?! It's been eight months! Two thirds of a year!"

Um. Yeah. A busy summer, an engine rebuild rushed through on a tight deadline, followed by a very busy winter at work, all conspired to make my spare time wosh by.

But, by popular demand (I know, I'm shocked too!), here is an update on progress.

I have drawn pleasing notes from a Nyckelharpa with a bow as intended!

All right. There was some cheating involved. More about that later.

Following on from last time I have been working on the next row of keys.
The first job was to fetch my father's electric jig saw as just the thought of cutting all those bits of wood down to Key shape by hand made my shoulder go out on strike.
I cut the lengths of wood supplied into pieces a little longer then each Key.

Here they are. On the left ten blanks for C string Keys, on the right twenty A string blanks. Three of the As are fatter than the rest because the body will be in line with the rest of the As, but the head will be down at the level of the Cs. They're designed that way because as you move along the string towards the bridge the notes get closer together and it starts getting very crowded up there with all those Keys! As my plan of attack is to make the Cs then the straight As and finally the three bent As, it's going to be a while before I get to show what I mean. I need the other keys made to give me a target to aim for when cutting them down as the wood provided is more than thick enough to reach the Cs so I will have to shape them in three dimensions.

I drew out the shape of the C Keys on the underside of each of the blanks and then cut the rough oversize outline with the jigsaw. As it is designed more for freehand working there is no easy way of making highly precise cuts. I have a miniature table top buzz saw that I used to cut the narrower Keys down to the correct width.

Here are the Cs with half rough cut and half drawn ready to be cut. I have marked the centre lines on the Keys to help me keep them symetrical when I start the fine shaping work. The table in the background is a list of the critical dimensions for each Key to help me while I was drawing them. The dimensions were measured from my Nyckelharpa instead of being taken from the drawings so that the Keys are made to fit it.

And here we have the complete set of ten rough cuts of the C Keys. Sadly that brings us up to date with the construction process. In two weeks time I have a week off work, as always there are other chores that need attention, but I would like to see out that week with some more progress made. Famous last words!

"If that's as far as you've got how did you get notes out of it?"

Oh yes, the cheating bit...

This Saturday evening I went to Halsway Manor to see Vicki Swan and Jonny Dyer play a concert. It was part of the Nyckelharpa begginers weekend organised by Vicki that I couldn't get time off work for, but it still provided me with the opportunity to meet a few people. During an entertaining concert that I recomend seeing Vicki played a Nyckelharpa made by Sören Åhker himself. Afterwards she introduced me to Ian McMaster who has built several Nyckelharpa from the same plans I am using. He had brought two of them along for the weekend as loaners. After a chat and some helpful hints about construction methods, and Bow choices I was able to briefly borrow one and give it a go. Now I must get on with building my harpa to see how it compares with the others!