Day 17: A Day Late and 35 Pins Short

I was able to complete the drilling and placement of most balance and back rail pins today. The drilling was relatively easy because I picked up a device that helped me drill each pin hole at 90 degrees - or as close to that as possible. It was nice to look at the keyboard with the holes; it's only a little progress, yet progress nonetheless.

While I was excited to see the pins going into the keyframe, I realized pretty quickly that I would not have enough. I had originally ordered two packs from The Instrument Workshop, yet I received only one. So much for checking my received order for accuracy. Still, though, I'm finding it extremely difficult to be upset with Mr. Bungart or the situation. I will simply order more from Hubbard Harpsichords this coming week. Regardless, here's a shot of the keyframe with all of the back rail and most of the balance rail pins installed:

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Ernest Miller's The Harpsichord Project 3.1 E-book recommends The Instrument Workshop, which is now out of business (at least for the time being). The very cool thing about Mr. Miller's e-Book is that it's all in HTML - whenever he updates the book, he notifies his customers, they download the latest files and the book is magically updated. I must say (after spending the last 20 years in the Web biz) that whoever helped Mr. Miller format the book did an amazing job - download the demo and you'll see what I'm talking about.

My point here is that Mr. Miller has said he will convert the eBook to Hubbard Harpsichords parts and links. I'm sure he will let us know when it's completed and we can download the latest version.

Until I receive additional pins, I'll be in a holding pattern. Fortunately, I'm in the middle of completing an acoustic guitar modeled on the Martin D-18 dreadnought, so I'll have plenty to do over the next couple of weeks. And there are always those pesky jigs to keep me busy, right?

Until next time...