Double-strung harp saga

[Biagio]

Mae I am sorry to hear of that inconvenience! Yet I am also confused: I thought that you had pegs with enlarged holes for strings greater than 0.045 in diameter (?). I guess you could squeeze in a 0.050 diameter string to the standard zither peg hole, but it would be a real pain.

Not being in the UK I don’t know where you could buy those enlarged hole pegs; here in the US I get them from MusicMakers. One can also drill the hole larger oneself but that is also a big pain.

Good luck!

[mae-mcallister]

The enlarged holes are for .055 and .060 – a REAL .050 fits in just fine. I’ve already enlarged one of my zither pins to account for my personal string design, it wasn’t hard. It’s more that I don’t WANT a .055 F and I shouldn’t have to have one either, it’ll totally throw off my design and even if I hadn’t done a different string design and I was a “normal” user, I’d still have major problems because none of my so-called blue .050s would fit into the pins that they need to fit into.

GRUMP.

[Biagio]

Grumble grumble indeed and I DO sympathize! This kind of thing is terribly frustrating. If it’s any consolation (and as I write this I realize it isn’t), the first two or three times around in harp making all kinds of things accelerated those grey hairs on my head.

I guess the two most memorable were not leaving enough wood on the neck in places for the levers and having to replace half the eyelets because the shafts were too long and cut the strings. The air turned pretty blue for a while:-)

Hang in there!

[mae-mcallister]

What do you mean about the eyeles being too long? I can’t visualise it..

[Biagio]

Brass eyelets come in different diameters as you know, and the shafts (that go through the ribs and board) are longer for those with larger diameters than shorter ones. On this harp I made the inner rib and board quite thin. Whoops, with the eyelet sizes I chose the end of the shaft protruded through the inner rib about 1/32″ in the treble which, cut the strings. Had to take them out and file them down.

It is for situations like this that we coined the term “unpleasant.”

[mae-mcallister]

More eyelet fun:

So yesterday Tim came round with the harp (she’s BEAUTIFUL) to install the zither pins and eyelets and strap. The strap was no problem…!

So firstly, Tim didn’t bring his drill bits because he thought I had drill bits which I don’t because I don’t own a drill. What I do have is a small drill bit for the levers, but the zither pin holes also need drilling out which I didn’t know because HE had the instructions with a different size bit. Secondly, the instructions list a drill bit that is probably very common in America with their crazily stupid outdated illogical pointless measuring system but good luck getting hold of anything here measured in 16ths of an inch. Our best guess is to see if we can find a drill bit that he has that approximately matches and in the meantime I’m going to ask everyone I know.

So no zither pins yet. Then, the eyelets. Well, the harp is designed for small eyelets only, but I decided I would like some medium and large ones on it for my changed string design and also because some of the strings only just clear a small eyelet. I ordered these from VT strings no problem, and we had no problem squishing the small eyelets into the relevant holes (they’re feisty little buggers, but they yield eventually). I managed to find an old drill bit of 3mm that is just the right size for the medium eyelets and so we starting drilling out those holes when it promptly snapped. Undeterred, we managed to attach the small piece of broken dril bit to the drill and carry on, and we got most of the medium eyelets in with relatievly little trouble.

BUT. You see, the last few holes for the lowest strings sit right opposite the bottom of the pillar. There’s not enough clearance to get a drill bit in there at all, let alone a drill. If you ever build a harp, for the love of god drill out the eyelet holes BEFORE you put the thing together. This is a thing that just didn’t occur to us. Still, we persevered. You see, a drill bit didn’t fit, but a BROKEN one did. So we used the other part of the broken drill bit to ream out all but the last hole by hand, with good success.

As for the last hole, even the broken drill bit wouldn’t fit in there. We spent a while trying to ream it out from inside the soundbox, which was hard as we couldn’t get much purchase in there. We tried abrasive cord. We tried a smaller drill bit. We tried just squishing the eyelet in. Nothing. After what was probably an hour of trying various things, we tried to use the first piece of broken drill bit from the front and it promptly snapped again. This time, it gave us a shard big enough to grab with a pair of pliers and small enough to fit between the pillar and soundboard. We used it to ream out the final hole by hand, and finally, finally, that stupid eyelet went in.

Tim is coming back on Thursday armed with drill bits and a gimlet, so watch out for Part Two: The Return of the Eyelets, where we go through the whole ordeal again with the large eyelets and deal with those pesky zither pins.

[Biagio]

Oh joy (sarcasm), this is really starting to awake old memories. Sometimes it is best to take the thing apart get at those tight spaces but if the neck is glued to the box that’s a pain too. Here are a few thoughts that may or may not be useful.

Drill bits for zither pegs: Machinist sizes are universal so for walnut I’d a #12.

String holes: it would probably be a good idea to lift those up a tad and squeeze a tiny drop of “Krazy Glue” aka cyanoacrilate, under the eyelet rim for those bass strings, then push them back in. Ream out any excess when it’s dry. Incidentally, acetone is the solvent; if necessary use an insulin syringe.

Good luck!

[Tacye]

Imperial drill bits grow on ebay perfectly easily or other online source you prefer.

[balfour-knight]

To Mae and all those who have contributed so graciously to this blog–congratulations! I have come into this saga rather late, I’m afraid, but I went back and enjoyed reading the entire blog. It is wonderful that so many of you out there helped Mae through this adventure, particularly Biagio. I look forward to reading about the outcome, after the harp is strung–I know Mae can’t wait to play and enjoy this harp!

[mae-mcallister]

Pick your favourite post title from: The Return of the Eyelets; The Eyelets Strike Back; A Nightmare on Eyelet Street; The Deathly Eyelets Part 2; Scream.

In contrast, the zither pins were LOVELY. Instructions recommend using a #11 drill bit (about 4.85mm) or a 3/16″drill bit (about 4.75mm) so I managed to get hold of one 4.8mm and all went smoooooth.

Unfortunately, the best I could do at such short notice for the big eyelets was a 3.5mm (they need 3.8mm). I got a 4mm too, but that one was slightly too big and we had to squish one of the eyelets in with a sliver of wood to make a tight fit. So we got a needle file and filed the holes until the eyelet went in. What we didn’t notice is that because of the awkward angles we were drilling at, the hole we drilled didn’t always follow the pre-drilled holes, so while there is one hole at the front of the soundboard, at the back there are sometimes two. Like a pair of trousers. Eeek. Heart-rending moment until we figured out which holes didn’t allow their strings to go through properly (because the hole needs to be big enough for the string the whole way through, not just the eyelet!) and filed them until they did. I’m still a bit upset/worried about it, but I think it should be ok and will be ok for the strings.

The last few holes were a b***h because we had to do them by hand, again because the drill doesn’t fit. We had a break until we did the last hole and did the zither pins then.

That last hole….well, damn. We were trying to ream it out from the back and after half an hour of unsuccessfulness, we discovered why – they hadn’t actually drilled the hole out in the first place. They’d made the pilot hole at the front, but not gone all the way through.

Well, we had fun with it, but we got there in the end after much swearing and sweating. Morals of the story are: Always Drill Out Soundboard Holes Before Constructing Harp (ADOSHBCH) and Everyone Needs A Bendy Drill (ENABD).

I spent the rest of the evening cleaning it out and sanding off splinters from the back. The varnish is a bit scratched opposite that last eyelet but Tim is coming back next Thursday with some sand paper and linseed oil and he says when he’s done you’ll never be able to tell.

Tonight – the stringing. I hope to whatever is out there that this harp sounds any good….

[mae-mcallister]

P.s I don’t want to glue the eyelets in just in case they one day crack they’ll be impossible to change.

[balfour-knight]

Mae, I had a little problem with the eyelets on my Musicmakers’ large Gothic harp, 36 strings. The tension and pressure of the metal bass strings on the eyelets makes them split eventually, and the walnut wood is so open-grained that it gives way to the pressure of the eyelet, making the hole oval-shaped. Jerry Brown, a dear friend of ours at Musicmakers’, and the builder of this harp, suggested putting a little epoxy around the edges of the holes and then inserting the eyelets. This has worked to stabilize the walnut, and when I just put all new strings on the harp last Fall, everything was doing great. That might be what Biagio was talking about. I am sure he will let you know! Good luck stringing–the best instructions I have found are from Dusty Strings, particularly how they secure the top end of the string under the first loop around the tuning pin. I copied Lyon & Healy when I learned to string this way, so I was glad to find that Dusty does the same! I love my 34-string Ravenna from them. Incidentally, both my lever harps have Loveland levers, and I particularly like the short “throw” of them. Other levers may have a slightly better tone, but the throw is too great the way I play with rapid lever changes throughout the piece. I have even gotten my fingers “tangled up” in Camac and Truitt levers, since I am so used to the feel and throw of the Lovelands!

[balfour-knight]

Mae, how is the stringing going?

[mae-mcallister]

Hello all!

Stringing update – so far, so good. I’ve been collecting splines out of new string packets for the last year and a half but I still don’t have enough for the little harp (none of my harps have strings thick enough to make decent splines, but Clive Morley, the main string distributor here, send you a spline with every new string you buy, which is nice because obviously spines don’t get used up when a string breaks, only a little bent sometimes). The strings I ordered special from VT have a leather washer attached, and those 10 leather washers I accidentally ordered from them too also came in massively handy because I used them instead of spines for the .060 and .055 strings. I’m still 2 splines down though, so my teacher is going to bring a handful round at our lesson on Wednesday.

So as a result, 42/44 of the strings are currently on. The first day, I simply attached them, the next I tightened them until they were “a note” (and attached some more – lots of them are duplicates and I didn’t want to snip until they had been tightened a little), the next I tuned them approximately an octave below where they’re going (and attached two more) and yesterday they went up to a 7th below. Today I will put them up to a 6th (they slip about a 3rd every day at the moment) and then on Wednesday I can put the last couple on and take it all up another tone, day by day, until it’s all roughly at pitch.

I took some pictures so if you’ve ever wondered what a harp looks like when it’s being strung, wonder no more. I’ll stick them up probably on Thursday…

[Biagio]

OK a few more thoughts here for what they’re worth…..

Gluing in eyelets: optional of course but if later removal is a concern I’d use CVA (Krazy Glue) rather than a “yellow glue”. The latter is a pain to dissolve (needs heat and moisture), CVA dissolves readily with acetone (nail polish remover).

I use short pieces of leather bootlace rather than splines these days. If anyone wants leather washers you can buy those from Vermont Strings or buy leather guitar strap pads (about $5 US/10 from Amazon). Or “do as I do” and cut them out of an old leather belt:-)

I take new nylon strings up to tension right away and after a day or two a step higher. Getting a double to hold pitch takes a lot longer than a single and that nylon has a lot of stretching to do, not to mention the soundboard belly.

Good to hear the strings are going on!

[Author]

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