Hello to those who have ever thought about making their own musical instrument. After over 30 years of playing the harp, I am now taking part in a small work shop, in which we make our own 26-string para-celtic harps, using a template design from harp maker Andy Rigby of Australia.

This work shop is being run by an enthusiastic lady called Gabriella Malik here in Christchurch, New Zealand, who herself has already made quite a number of harps. Determined not to let government funding cuts to community classes stop us, Gabriella has been quite resourceful in finding ways to keep costs to a minimum, by sourcing the best priced plywood, arranging for someone to cut the main pieces out, and making her house and garage available for us to work in.

Today is Day One, being Easter Monday 5 April 2010.

I arrived at Gabriella’s house to find her, along with two other participants, David and Scott, drawing the holes for the back of the sound box piece. It’s important to have these holes, as they will allow us to string the harp later on in our project. The holes can be any shape we like, but have to be of a practical size. The two men’s shapes in the sound box piece were a bit more adventurous than mine; I opted for a simple set of progressively smaller curved diamond shapes going up the board. Drawn freehand, but trying to space it out as evenly as possible, leaving plenty of room on either side, as well as down the bottom and up the top.

It was useful having a few of Gabriella’s previously made harps there to look at, and she was able to show us, for example, why not to have a hole too close to the bottom, because later on, a block of wood will need to be placed at the bottom of the box (for support I think), and it’s not necessary to see this. Apart from that, it’s always encouraging to see possible end results of what will take a bit of patience, perseverance and hard work. And new learning!

It was my first go using an electric powered jigsaw today. I started out using a hand jigsaw, which made for a very jagged first shape. Once I tried the electric one, I knew that I wouldn’t be using the hand one if I could help it! Quite a bit of control needed there though, with this powerful tool, along with knowing where best to start (you drill a hole in the middle of the shape first), and how to approach the outline and then join it and follow it along, without going too far!! I must admit that I did need help with the smoothing out of the shapes at the end.

Having cut out the shapes in the back piece of the sound box, we were sent home with a coarse grade of sand paper to smooth out the holes, which was best done outside, so as not to create “divorce dust” as one man put it!

Apparently this was one of the more trickier parts of making the harp. Next step will be to glue all the pieces together.

Day Two of Harp Making Workshop
Friday 9 April 2010

In the morning I stopped by Gabriella’s house for a couple of hours to get started on the frame for the sound box.

This time around, Gabriella had all the main pieces needed to construct the harp, machined out by a company with a CNC system (Computer Numerical Control – you puts the specs into a computer, which is hooked up to a router, and enables you to produce any number of the same sized pieces of wood).

Here you see me drilling a couple of holes in each of the four wooden blocks needed to glue, and then screw into the four sides of the trapezium shaped frame. These four sides are made of kauri; quite different and much nicer to work with than plywood.

Next clamps were needed to apply pressure while the glue dried. We used scraps of newspaper on the area first, followed by a scrap of wood before the clamp was put on, as this prevents any dents in the kauri. The newspaper was to stop this piece of scrap wood from sticking to the kauri. I came back that evening to work on the neck and pillar part of the harp. Gabriella had received all the ordered cuts as well as the sandpaper.

Using the Andy Rigby template for the neck and pillar, we each got another bit of kauri and traced the outline of the template on to the kauri. This was the piece to be sandwiched in between the pillar area and the top of the neck of the two pre-cut outside neck-and-pillar pieces (made of plywood).

Then it was back to the power jigsaw to roughly cut out the shape, which was then glued in between the two outside pieces. And then….came the clamps, many clamps, to go all around the harp. I think each one had at least 20 of them; I never realized just how important they were! Once again we had to let these neck-and-pillar pieces set for about two hours.

Before setting off home we were given the “string-bar” piece to take home and sand using eight grades of sandpaper. This is the piece that will later get glued onto the middle of the sound box, and will have the strings coming through.

Day Three of Harp Making Workshop
Sunday 11 April 2010

Arriving at Gabriella’s place again, it was a nice day outside, so the first couple of hours were spent sanding the string-bar using the eight grades of sandpaper. I was impressed with what resulted ; a very smooth feel and look!

The clamps had been removed from the neck and pillar pieces and we took turns at using an electric sander to sand the middle piece down to match the two outer pieces.

Here you see two of the workshop participants, Rachel and Scott, checking the results so far. Scott is holding his neck and pillar piece, which you can see still needed a bit of work to sand down (see left hand side).

It was a lovely day, and we had a picnic lunch outside while Gabriella and I played on two of the previously made harps.

Day Four of Harp Making Workshop
Friday 16 April 2010

Another 5 to 8pm session at Gabriella’s, who had brought with her a big huge sanding board, on which to sand the soundboxes. A great way of getting a nice even finish all across.
We needed two people for this job, both taking turns at pushing the box towards the other person, a bit like a sanding see-saw!

Day Five of Harp Making Workshop

Sunday 18 April 2010
We hired the Hagley High’s Woodwork Shop so that we could do some serious sanding using their specialized equipment. It sure beats sanding by hand!
We used one sander to smooth out the edges of the outside and inside of the neck-and-pillar piece, as you can see David doing below.

We had to make sure we were pushing the wood the right way against the sanding belt, or else our hands could quite easily get the skin sanded off! As you can see the workshop has extraction fans above each of the sanders, so we don’t get to breathe in too much saw/sand dust. Understandably no eating or drinking is allowed anywhere in this workshop.

For the really curved bit between the neck and pillar bit, we used a sanding machine with a rotating, sand paper covered rod, that would move up and down. So much faster and even, than doing this by hand!

In the meantime, the soundboxes had had their clamps taken off. One string bar must have moved during handling, and will now have to be sanded off the soundbox, in order to put a new string bar on which is correctly aligned. Just goes to show that clamping is very important, and one has to be oh so careful with moving it afterwards.

From 19 April to 16 May 2010 we were to do our sanding at home, followed by our own choice of staining or painting.

So I spent a bit of time in the garage, going through the eight grades of sand paper given to us. It took a while, but I was pretty pleased with the result, the pieces ended up looking and feeling very smooth.
I was keen on staining the harp, and had heard the others talking about some kind of oil. I enquired, and Gabriella recommended Danish Oil to me, which I then decided to have a go with. I took the harp in to Mitre 10 Mega as I had no idea how much oil to ask for, and figured that the people behind the counter would be able to judge by looking at the harp. And they did, they were very helpful and I came away with 250 mls of Danish Oil, a muslin cloth for wiping the excess oil off with, and an 38mm oval paintbrush.
So, one sunny Thursday afternoon I brought the two bits of harp out into the back yard and laid them out onto an old sheet. I then got some skewers (the ones you use for kebabs etc.) to plug into the pre-drilled holes, so the oil wouldn’t seep in.
I then poured some oil over the main part on the harp and with the brush spread it out as far as it would go. Then with the muslin cloth wiped off any excess oil. It dried quite quickly, especially on a nice sunny day outside, and I managed to put on three coats of it.
A health and safety tip… do not fold up your muslin cloth after you’ve used it with the oil, as it could start a fire if you crumple it up when you put it away; just hang it out to dry. Also allow for some airflow wherever you’re storing the harp pieces after oiling, as it tends to smell quite strongly for a while.
A few of the work shop participants were able to pick up the “machine heads” from Gabriella’s and put them on to the neck-and-pillar part of the harp. These are the “pegs” you find on a guitar at the top of the fret, and are used for stringing and tuning the guitar, and in our case, the harp! This involved pushing the machine heads in on one side, screwing them in against the wood with two little screws, then doing the same on the other side of the neck, but one hole further along, and so on. I learnt from one of the others, that it s a good idea to hammer in a small hole first, before then adding the screw. These smaller screws weren’t so strong and a couple of them “lost their heads” as they collapsed under the pressure put on them. This job is quite time consuming and finicky, but once you’ve got a system and you’ve done it a few times, you do become faster at it.

Day Six of Harp Making Workshop
Monday 17 May 2010

This was an exciting evening for us. Three of us met at Gabriella’s place for the stringing up. Each participant had oiled, painted, varnished their harps and it was amazing to see how different the harps now looked! See below…

Looking at Scott’s harp, above, you will see that it is still in two pieces. When you fit them together, the neck-and-pillar part sits quite loosely in the sound box part. It is in fact the strings that hold this type of harp together; once you’ve completed the stringing it feels quite solid and secure.

The first thing we did before stringing, was to insert the bridge pins; these are the gold coloured ones with the groove in the middle. It’s important to make sure that when you look down into the top part of the harp, that these grooves all line up in the middle. This is where the strings are going to be resting against. If the pin is not in far enough, you can gently tap it in further with another pin or nail, or come at it from the top and insert a screwdriver to carefully push it left or right.

The next thing is to match the three lots of eyelets up with the right holes in the string board and push them in.

The stringing itself should always start at the bottom, and it’s a good idea to have all your strings labelled and laid out in order of stringing. It will take a while to string, and then to constantly tune it and settle, before it is ready to be played. Don’t go and book to play at any concerts with it until then!

We made a start with the stringing at Gabriella’s, but did the rest at home. The following is important when stringing this harp:

1. The first lot of wire strings already have the felt stoppers at the bottom, to stop them from slipping through the holes. For the next nine strings thread each through a little square of leather (old leather belts are good for this), then tie a nail to it with a good non-slip knot (approx. 2.5cm nail). Do the same for the remaining strings, but use smaller nails. You can hammer a hole into the leather bits with the nail to make a hole to thread your string through.

2. Thread the string through the sound box into the appropriate hole and pull it through to the top. Ensure that you thread it correctly through the neck part, so that it sits against the correct bridge pin and goes through the hole in the corresponding machine head. Make sure you don’t miss any bridge pins out, as it’s frustrating to undo!

3. Pull the string all the way through the hole in the machine head, but leave it a little “loose”, as you want to be able to wind it around the machine head a couple of times.

4. To tighten, turn the peg on the machine head away from you (clockwise). It’s very important to wind all the strings on in the same direction, else you’ll get confused later on! You can use a guitar “string winder” to help you wind the pegs (you’ll get a very tired hand and wrist otherwise!).

5. Use wire cutters to trim about 1-1.5 cms from the hole.

TIP – you can use a drinking straw to help you guide the string through the neck part. Bendy straws make it even easier!