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I can certainly second the recommendation for Rick Kemper’s plans at Sligo harp shop. My first harp that I built was his 22 string Waldorf that he offers the plans for for free on his website. His building guide, also free, is invaluable. I did an apprentice build with him at his shop last year, and built a 34 string Luchair, which I love. He is an excellent resource, and is great about answering questions via email if you have them while building.
I ended up building my waldorf with extremely minimal tools (though, I was lucky enough to have access to someone with a big band saw, who cut out the neck/arm for me.) I did use tapered pins, which I found were a lot less slippy than using the zither pins (my first woodworking project was an anglosaxon lyre, which I used zither pins on, and had a hard time keeping tuning tension, but that might have been due to inexperience.) My advice on building one would be to make sure you buy the actual epoxy that Rick recommends in the building guide– my waldorf eventually blew apart at the arm/neck joint because I used what I had, and not what I should have used. If you are wanting to do levers, as well, I reached out to loveland levers, which worked great, and are probably the least expensive option that still works as it should.
That is super helpful! Thank you. This is my first wire harp. I did an apprentice build for a Luchair 34 string nylon lever harp with Sligo Harp shop last year, but wire strings are a bit intimidating, lol. I am going to be replacing all of the eyelets as well as some are missing or sheared off, and it was recommended to use the phospher bronze. The Z toggles look much easier than trying to mess with ball ends.
