Preliminaries

I learned a few things from building the prototype. For one thing, while building a guitar was something wherein I could profitably indulge my taste for hand tools, building the harp involved much heavier timbers and much harder hardwoods! I found that the very first operation that mattered was a real pain to get right...simply milling out the major structural pieces. I began sketching and devising, devising and sketching.

After making these diagrams, I gave up on the bolts and wingnuts; it was too many pieces. Instead I screwed a strip of wood to the underside of the jig, that can be clamped in the jaws of my benchtop vise.

Another procedure that caused a lot of trouble and for which I plan to use a more high-tech method is the shaping of the curved neck and pillar. I bandsawed as close as I could get to the final shape and used "microplane" and edge tools to refine the shape. Man, that maple is tough! I plan to make plywood templates and use a pattern-following bit in a router.

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