Having cut the joints I can now glue and clamp the bentside into place, and the perimeter of the harpsichord is in place. This is always a satisfying moment for me - to see the instrument come into being, to see it take shape. But I know it is really just the start of the instrument, and there are more parts awaiting my attention, like the bottom braces which must now be glued and slid into their dovetails and clamped to set. More clamps, more glue, more waiting. While this is going on, I can get the the remaining case parts set to install.
 

First up are the liners, the rails that support the soundboard. The bentside liner, what will be the 8' hitchpin rail in reality, is laminated to exactly fit the inside surface of the bentside. The liners are cut so that they resist the pull of the music wire, and so that if the unthinkable should happen - a liner coming un-glued - they will hold each other in place. I've never had a liner come unstuck in one of my instruments, that I'm aware of, but perhaps it's because I pay attention to such details.

Then comes the the belly rail re-inforcing bar, and the upper braces, complete with knee blocks set against the bentside liner to resist inward flexing of the bentside. These all go in fairly rapidly. These components, like the rest of the case, are designed to provide a very rigid and strong support for the soundboard, and are engineered to provide a very static anchor for the music wire. The reason for this is simple: I want as much of the music wire's kinetic energy to go into the soundboard as possible and I want the soundboard to make efficient use of it. If the case is too flexible, that energy is dissipated into the case. The rigid case also provides for exceptional stability in tuning, perhaps a more tangible benefit of my concerns with engineering.

Time now to work the soundboard, time to kiss it with my smoothing plane. In its finished for, the soundboard is about 1/8-inch thick, and thinned along the bentside as I deem appropriate. For all this I use my old wood-bodied smoothing plane, which leaves a glistening clean surface on the spruce. Varying the thickness is done by eye and hand, a skill acquired from many year's practice. Certain areas of the soundboard along the bentside are left thicker (or thinner) than other areas; just how I do it is my judgement call according to the weight and mass of the soundboard, it's tap-tone, and so on. It's not a mystical thing; rather it is a matter of acquired knowledge. Sometimes, however, the results are mysical.

The bridges now have to be made and prepared for gluing onto the soundboard. Once again, I have to point out that there are a number of different methodologies in the making of bridges. There was a time when my 8-foot bridges were cut from a single plank of wood. This process leaves the treble hook weakend due to very short cross-grain running through the bridge: the culprit in "le crack obligatoire", an almost inevitable break in the bridge. For a while I steam-bent my bridges to avoid the infamous crack, and this worked fine. Having drifted away from steaming, my methodology now is to use a single plank of wood (walnut, usually) that has been cut and re-joined so that the plank's grain more-or-less follows the curve of the treble hook of the bridge.
 

The bridge receives a lot of hand work - in fact, it is entirely hand work and making one can be an intense experience. Not something I am likely to start at 3:00 p.m. on Friday, I have to be keen and at the top of my form when I cut a bridge. When it is finished, I lay it on the soundboard in its approximate place, and mark out its location. Its placement is critical to the sound of the instrument - there is no room here for error because so many aspects of the instrument are at stake. I am not ready to glue on the bridge just yet, however. There are the four-foot hitchpin rail, the ribs and cut-off bar and the 4-foot bridge all to get ready.

Before attaching the bridges to the soundboard I will alter the moisture content of the soundboard, raising it slightly so that after the 8-foot bridge is attached and the soundboard dries out, there will be a subtle "crown" in the soundboard under the 8-foot bridge. The crown has implications for the sound of the instrument, and it prevents the soundboard from collapsing down into the instrument under the stress of the string band
 

SOON TO COME: Page 4 - Completing the Soundboard and Casework