Neither had I until one day not too long ago a friend of my sons approached me about making a harp from a pipe dream he had and a set of his plans. His criteria was it had to to be small enough to put in a carry on bag and be dismantled with 4 bolts and not have to be restrung when reassembled.

The first 2 pictures are the plans.

Then I will attempt to show a pictorial of the build. I might add that I have never made a musical instrument or played one in my life.

The material I selected was Western maple. I use a lot of maple as it is abundant here and I live only a few miles from Maple Valley.

 

Herb

 

To be continued ,there is more to this story.

Herb

Edited December 10, 20169 yr by Dadio

Wow, Herb! I cannot even imagine building something like this! 

 

IMHO, it came out beautifully!

Thank goodness you had plans.  I know I wouldn't have any idea where to even start.

3 minutes ago, Texaswally said:

Thank goodness you had plans.  I know I wouldn't have any idea where to even start.

Ditto. Looks very complicated. 

1 hour ago, Dadio said:

Have you ever made a Harp?

no need...

had a GF that did enough harping for ten people...

you've heard this before..

and I'll say it again.....

yur good Herb...

30 minutes ago, Texaswally said:

Thank goodness you had plans.  I know I wouldn't have any idea where to even start.

 

The plans were kind of "sketchy" ,heh heh, but what can you expect from a dream?

 

Coming up rev.1,2,and 3, ..............lossed count

Herb

 Beautiful workmanship. Is there a web site for the plans & does the box act like an amplifier?

19 minutes ago, DuckSoup said:

 Beautiful workmanship. Is there a web site for the plans & does the box act like an amplifier?

 No web site, Just the chicken scratches he handed me that you see in the first 2 pictures. The most helpful was the cardboard template he gave me to cut out the main body .

Yes the box is a sound box.

He strung it with steel strings and it sounded quite good ,but not loud enough for him. He has several harps of different sizes and sings and  plays Irish music at the pubs on a regular basis and also does other gigs for private parties.

So that is where the revisions started from, trying to get louder music from it.

He had me add a brass strip for the strings to go thru, cut different holes in the sound boards, eliminate the wooden bridge with the holes in it, The last one I did was cut the back section of the body out completely and add an angle iron to the top piece and the front piece to anchor the strings to. Since then he has done several things and finally got it where he wants it and is going to drop it off for me to make some new sound boards out of cedar.

I am always amazed with the quality of your work Herb. Beautifully done, using less than ideal drawings to work with.

Thanks for all the nice comments.

 

 

 

The story is not done yet. I will start another thread for the rest of the story.

Herb

Herb that is one great way to present an instrument. Wish I knew about you before my wife paid 7K for a 5 foot harp.

Heh,Heh, Thanks for the compliment, at the moment I am not in the harp business. Wow, a 5' harp ? What a lucky guy you are ,you can sit with your feet up in front of the fire while your wife serenades you with harp music, can't get any better than that.

 

Herb

 

Nice Herb.  Didn't know harps had sound boxes.

10 minutes ago, HandyDan said:

Nice Herb.  Didn't know harps had sound boxes.

Dan, I didn't either.

But some do, I found out.

Herb

 Herb, you need to do some tutorials for those of us that want to get on the first rung of your ladder.

 Again, Beautiful work.

12 hours ago, Dadio said:

Dan, I didn't either.

But some do, I found out.

Herb

At last THIS one does! You, sir, are a man of infinite patience! Beautiful work.

John

WOW...the precision...! ! !

 

A whole new career for you, Herb...building wood instruments...!

That is really Herb!!

That is some great workmanship.

Is there anyway you'll be able to take a video of the harp so we can hear it? 

On ‎12‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 1:51 PM, Stick486 said:

you've heard this before..

and I'll say it again.....

yur good Herb...

That is a mild understatement for Herb's talents