I am taking a break. It has just taken 3 hrs and 40 minutes to get the first 42 strings on. (another 80 to go - arghhhh!!) I had to take most of the pegs off another harp (which is second in line to be repaired). I use fishing line - not because I am a 'skin-flint' but because my harps are designed to sound different and to do this I have altered the lengths of the strings. All mathematics. When I asked the string manufacturers for quotes to buy rolls they wouldn't let me have them - only pre-cut lengths available. Huh!! Eventually a fellow musician who owned a fishing supplies wholesale company let me have every guage he had in stock!
Another problem I had was that I have to use harpsichord pegs to hold the strings onto the harp. To get more than one set of strings on the top (head) of the harp you have to be pretty organised - there isn't much room! The harpishord pegs have a standard width of hole in the end to thread the wire string through before you start winding it on and tightening it. The hole is much too small for the first octave of nylon strings. Solution ... to hammer the end of the string flat on an old shoe last and carefully cut a thin sliver off so it fits through!
As I write this the air is acrid because a local mill burnt down yesterday in Haworth, also Dave is outside spraying the first coat onto Dav-Al. Be patient Dave!!! He is so excited to see the finished result he worked till midnight in the barn the other night... (but I can't wait either!).
At Burnley Community Festival next Sunday - Queen's Park
Showing posts with label the harpist on the rock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the harpist on the rock. Show all posts
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Friday, 6 August 2010
Gluing the Laurel and Hardy way
It took a whole week to get the glue off my hands! I am making my new 'Elizabethan' harp, Mystical, with 4 sets of strings which means it will have a luted soundboard and therefore a different design. I started joining the top of the soundbox to the 'neck' of the harp and discovered a problem ... screws and drillbits are just not long enough. I tried to buy some - must be very specialist as the local DIY shop couldn't help. Nevermind I thought - I will use some of that expanding glue.....arghhhhhhh....(as it turned out).
The plastic container of glue had been put deliberately to the back of the cupboard after the last attempt. It sets so fast that I could feel that the top half was solid, but, if I sawed the bottle in half (I am impossibly practical - 'waste not, want not'). I thought I was prepared - a metal tray, old honey jar at hand to pour it into, masking tape and plastic stuck all over the harp, newspaper on the floor, etc etc.
Two hours later it had finally set hard and I had finished scraping all the 'runs' off the harp and had trimmed my hair from its new fashion of 'christmas-tree-like' baubles. It burst straight through the masking tape, managed to fill the tray and expand to the table and all attempts at keeping my hands clean were futile. ... BUT ... it did solve the problem ... however ... do I do this again or can a better method be found?
The plastic container of glue had been put deliberately to the back of the cupboard after the last attempt. It sets so fast that I could feel that the top half was solid, but, if I sawed the bottle in half (I am impossibly practical - 'waste not, want not'). I thought I was prepared - a metal tray, old honey jar at hand to pour it into, masking tape and plastic stuck all over the harp, newspaper on the floor, etc etc.
Two hours later it had finally set hard and I had finished scraping all the 'runs' off the harp and had trimmed my hair from its new fashion of 'christmas-tree-like' baubles. It burst straight through the masking tape, managed to fill the tray and expand to the table and all attempts at keeping my hands clean were futile. ... BUT ... it did solve the problem ... however ... do I do this again or can a better method be found?
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