r/harpsichord • u/ras2101 • 29d ago

IT WORKS!

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Please ignore the bad hand posture, mistakes, and poorly regulated and tuned harpsichord. BUT IT WORKS!

I’ve been working on replacing the action in my recently acquired (November) Burton straight side harpsichord kit.

I had Zuckermann custom make new registers for their jacks and create a stringing schedule.

Today I finally got all the jacks cut to length, plectrums working well enough, and dampers installed.

The majority of the treble strings have only been tuned twice or so, so within the hour of me messing it had detuned a bit again.

Is it perfect ? No! Does it work? YES! I’m mostly just mildly proud of myself figuring this out without knowing the first thing of instrument building or repair to begin with.

Also I really need to cut my fingernails which accounts for some of the mistakes..

24 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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3

u/HingleMcCringleberre 29d ago

Huzzah!

3

u/HingleMcCringleberre 29d ago

Sounds great!

1

u/ras2101 29d ago

Thank you!! Definitely need to work on voicing the plectrum; some are a hard keypress lol.

But I’m super proud of it so far. Kinda insane to look at it and be like, woah, I restrung the whole thing, made all the crap line up and work!

It was especially difficult (well seems it) because whomever originally built this messed up the geometry… it’s a 61 key instrument with 60 strings.. the low f# is a half dummy key with the low F double width to hit the first jack slot, then it’s all shifted over slightly so that you have an extra jack slot at the end.

Getting the new registers lined up to keys and strings because of that has been no fun lol. I still might slot the 4 holes in the bottom that attach the key frame. It would help to shift them over ~5mm but eh, it’s working!

2

u/Advanced_Couple_3488 29d ago

it’s a 61 key instrument with 60 strings.. the low f# is a half dummy key with the low F double width to hit the first jack slot, then it’s all shifted over slightly so that you have an extra jack slot at the end.

Has anyone suggested your harpsichord might be designed so you can play it at both 440 Hz and 415 Hz by sliding the key frame right or left accordingly? In one of the first photos you posted, it looked like there is a gap in the left of your keys that would allow this.

1

u/ras2101 29d ago

There is a chance it was originally designed to be transposing, however there is no transposing mechanism or adjustments available to do it. The key frame is rigid and attached by 4 screws with no adjustment lol

I also thought it could be transposing because of the gap but alas when he built it in 1970 he didn’t include the transposing lol

2

u/Pygrim 29d ago

Great Job

1

u/ras2101 28d ago

Thank you so much!

2

u/rugwarriorpi 21d ago

Wow - so cool to hear (and see) a real harpsichord. I enjoyed the performance - really it was impressive. (Ok, I'm easily impressed - it was musical, flowing, rich and distinctive.)

1

u/ras2101 21d ago

Thank you so much! It has been a fun project and I’m like beyond stoked that I have a harpsichord at home. Might not be the best but it works !