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!
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