Hobgoblin Music's Crawley shop often
has an example of the Eve design on display. I had a close look at the
way one of these was put together, and asked to see a kit next time they had
one in stock, as I wasn't too sure how much work I'd have to do and whether
I'd have the appropriate woodworking tools and skill to complete the task.
However, the parts in the kit were mostly ready cut, and the instructions were
also a lot more detailed, so it didn't look too intimidating. There was no
full-size drawing, but one wasn't really necessary, as everything that might
have needed measuring was already cut or marked. The detailed instructions
were worth reading through thoroughly, at least twice.
The first task involved cutting sound holes in the back of the sound box
and in the top of the sound board. A fairly simple task if you happen to
have a fret-saw. I didn't. I do now. The next few tasks involved glue
and clamps, first to attach the string bar to the sound board, then to
assemble the sound box, and last to attach the neck to the pillar.
The trickiest task was assembling and glueing the sound box. There are ten
pieces of wood to be glued together, and this needs to be done in a single
operation. The glue used must not set too quickly because the joints are
bound to need adjusting when all the pieces are assembled. Getting the
joints looking clean from the outside is also difficult. The instructions
suggest using little wooden wedges to push the ply sides against the
outside sides of the slots they fit into, but this is a lot easier said
than done, especially for the last edges glued. I found it worked fairly
well for the sound board, but not so well for the sides, and was pretty
well impossible for the back. There was a limit to the length of time the
glue in the joints would remain workable, and getting the box properly
squared up seemed more important...
Joining the pillar to the pinblock was much simpler. Most of the work on the
joint had already been done. All it needed was a bit of glue and the careful
application of a certain amount of force. The four dowel pegs needed a bit of
trimming to make sure the joint would close completely and let glue escape.
The force was needed to ensure the joint actually did close completely.
Parcel tape is handy for strapping up those joints that can't easily be
held firm with clamps. I used quite a bit of it.
The next tricky task was fitting the neck and pillar assembly to the sound
box. I clamped the pinblock to a tressle so that the top of the soundbox
would be horizontal, and that made planing the shoulder easier. I didn't
need to take much off the foot of the pillar. Most of the adjustment came
off the shoulder, but it took a while to plane the contact surfaces to a
good fit. Getting the bolts accurately placed in the top of the soundbox
and the shoulder was also interesting. Good thing I had a socket set with
a foot-long extension rod. Add some glue, two bolts (with two nuts each)
and one wood-screw, and the harp was finally in one piece.
At this point I thought I'd probably done more than half the work needed
to complete the harp. I was wrong.
The shoulder needed quite a bit of shaping to get it looking good, but the
wood was nothing like as hard to work with as the wood my first harp was
made from. I did need to re-sharpen the spoke-shave, but only a few times,
and then the sanding began. It took a lot more sanding than I was expecting
to get the wood smooth. The sanding probably took as long as all the rest of
the construction combined. Still, it's worth getting the surface looking good,
or that's what I kept telling myself each time I was tempted to say "That's
good enough."
Eventually I decided it really was good enough, and started applying the
tung oil. I lost count of the number of coats I applied, and how often I
did some more fine sanding after a coat had dried, but when it came to
stringing time there was a certain quantity of dust and oil to be extracted
from the holes. I discovered a lack of inch-sized drills in my workshop late
one night. A handy metric equivalent was available though, so the fitting
of pins and strings did not have to be delayed.
It is said that all harps have names, and curiously, this one seemed to answer to the name Imp even before it (or should that be "he") was complete. Since then, with a little assistance from Peter Murray (aka Ginger Bear), his name has grown to Imp y Telyn. Whatever...
The semitone levers did take a while to arrive though, so for a while I had Imp tuned in some variant of the key of F as I brought the strings up to pitch. The levers (when they arrived) were easier to fit than the cams on my clarsach, but there were a few things that needed watching:
Imp now has levers on B, C, and F, and holds pitch fairly well. Tuning him is different though. I generally lay him flat on my knee with the pinblock on the left and the pins pointing up, because it's easier to get at the pins and the strings that way.
One thing that small lap harps are prone to do is slide off your lap. I got
rather tired of this quite quickly, and wondered how I could make the harp
stay put. I eventually figured that some sort of strap was called for, and
bought a cheap adjustable guitar strap and three pegs. The strap goes from
a peg on the right of the harp's shoulder to a peg under the front left
corner of the soundbox. The third peg is also fitted on bottom of the soundbox
so that the base is still fairly stable. The strap works quite well most of
the time, and means I can concentrate on playing rather than on keeping the
harp on my lap.