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Hello All!

Are there any harp builders in the house?

My wife really wants me to build a harp for her. She has been in love the instrument for years, but
has never owned one. Done some research, and have found I can build one for around $200.00.

Here’s a couple of questions for starters;

I’ve been told that, the neck is generally made from plywood now. Is this ture?
And, are harp builders using guitar tuning machines instead of the old types?

Robert

_________________
Everything has beauty, But, not everyone see's it!

Robert,

I assume you mean harp rather than harp guitar. If so Al Carruth makes these and I'm sure he'll be along any minute

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

At one time I built a fair number of them, but haven't put one together in a while.

The arm is usually _laminated_, but that's a lot different from _plywood_. The important factor is that the grain of all of the layers in a harp arm should run in pretty much the same direction, along the arm. Even a small harp can be carrying 600-800# of string tension total, and it's all on the arm. Many of the larger harps (which can carry a couple of TONS of tension) have arms made of piano pinblock stock: thin rock maple laminations all running the same direction, and up to a couple of inches thick. Most of my harps had at least one lamination of hard maple in the arm.

Strings are an important item. A good harp with bad strings is awful, but a bad harp with good strings can sound pretty good. If you are building from a plan they should tell you what strings to get. If you are making up your own design, then work out the strings first, and be sure you can get what you want, THEN design the woodwork. There used to be a number of suppliers for harp strings, who could design a set for you and make them up at quite a reasonable price (remember, they don't wear out as fast as guitar strings). It has been a while since I ran in those circles, so I'm out of touch.

One thing I'm out of touch with is the 'Folk Harp Journal': I don't know if it exists any more or not. If it does, that would be a great place to start looking for string makers, hardware, and other stuff. I still get the Sylvia Woods Harp Center catalog (www.harpcenter.com), and they have a lot of interesting stuff, but not much for people who want to build their own.

Not that I knew about any of that when I got started making harps. I heard Alan Stivell's 'Renaissence of the Celtic Harp' (which you can get from Sylvia) and HAD to have one of those. I learned a lot by trial and error, and then found out about the FHJ, and learned a lot more with a lot less error. Making a good harp is a real challenge, but there's no other sound quite like it. There's an MP3 of my most recent harp on my web site, along with a picture or two.

Much more could be said, of course, but that's a start.     

I did a search on 'Folk Harp Journal' and it's still out there. It's published by the 'International Society of Folk Harpers and Craftsmen' (if I remember that correctly). One of the founders, now gone, was Robbie Robinson, and Robinson's Harp Shop still advertises in the Journal, and still sells strings and plans. I'm sure there are other places that do.

Thanks All,

Todd, Thanks anyway, I know your heart was in the right place.

Dave, Yes, it is a “Harp” I’m talking about. I still need to button my wife down on the style of harp.
I showed her several web sites, and I think it will be between, either a Celtic, or Paraguayan style.

Alan, You’re right, there are a lot of places that sell harp supplies, and I assume that any one of
them would be fine to deal with. You have mentioned a lot of other details, I’d not thought of.
I better do some more research before I purchase anything.

I did go to your website, and really liked the harp you built. How do you feel about using guitar
tuning machines on a harp? I can see where it may be easier for tuning, however, I’m not sure if it
would look right. How hard is it to tune a harp with tapered tuning pins?

Robert

_________________
Everything has beauty, But, not everyone see's it!

Robert,

Have you seen this photo-documentary on making a Celtic harp? Or this one?

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Thanks Dave,

I'll be checking them out!

_________________
Everything has beauty, But, not everyone see's it!

Taper pins work quite well, actually. For one thing, the tuning hammer gives you a lot of leverage, so you can move them a tiny amount, which can be harder with fiddle pegs, for example. Also, harp pins are metal, so thay don't go out of round. You do need to get a special reamer for the holes.

Parguayan harps use guitar tuners. You have to build the arm to acommodate them, of course. I would think that that many tuners would be expensive if you got good ones, and hard to tune if you used bad ones. I've never used them, so I could be wrong.

Oh yeah: DON'T use zither/autoharp pins! The other harpers will shun you. Don't even think of using steel strings, either.

Hi Alan,

I like what you’re saying! I just couldn’t get past the thought of having guitar tuners on a harp!
I found a picture of one on the web, and they do look a little strange. Thanks for the heads up on
the zither/autoharp pins, and steel strings. Though, I must admit, I was planning on using nylon.
I thought from the get go, that nylon would offer better tone. Yes?

My wife Suz, seems to be settling in on the Paraguayan style, and I’m assuming it won’t be a
problem using the standard tapered pins. I have 3 tapered reamers. One is a violin peg reamer. As
for the other 2, can’t remember exactly what their sizes are. I do know, that one of them is for the
end pin of a guitar body (5 degree?). I’m going to have to check on the other one.

As for the neck, I really want to use solid wood. I’ve been told that plywood is more dependable,
but I want to build it as traditional as I can, within reason of course. I’ve got a lot of white ash,
that may do well for the pillar and the neck, and I’ve got some quarter sawn red oak, that could
work for the sound box. The sound board is a different matter. I think traditionally it is made from
spruce. So, if I go with spruce, I’ll have to purchase some. On the other hand, if I go not so traditional,
I have some baltic birch 1/8" ply, and some cherry 1/8" ply, that would look rather nice together.

What do you think, Alan?

_________________
Everything has beauty, But, not everyone see's it!

Get the pins, and find the reamer that works with them. They are usually simply Brown and Sharpe taper pins that have had one end milled square for the tuning hammer, and a hole in the other. I'm not sure of the taper of these, but it may be 1:48.

Use solid wood for the arm, but laminate it. Run the different layers at about 5 degree angles to each other along the grain. This is enough to add a lot of splitting resistance and not enough to build up a lot of stress in the glue lines. I'd use two ash laminations with a layer about 3/8-1/2" of rock maple in between. The old non-laminated arms that have survived were really thick. Remember, along with the tension, which is seen as a torque load on the arm because all of the strings come off one side, there is also the wedge action of all of those tapered pins trying to split the arm. It's a real drag to have the arm split just as you're pulling the last strings up to tension.

I like to use spruce for the soundboard, but there are a lot of expensive harps out there with plywood boards; often with a spruce veneer.

In the old pre-plywood days they made the board up out of spruce pieces that had the grain running across the top. They are tied together and reinforced by the inner and outer string bars. The problem with this is that it's like having a guitar top a couple of feet wide: it tends to crack with changes in humidity. I found that using spruce with the annual ring lines close to 45 degrees cut that problem down a lot. Many of the other harp makers said that would give a 'tubby' or 'unclear' sound. The harp that used to make that MP3 has a soundboard like that: does it sound 'unclear' to you? I think that belief stems from a misunderastanding of how the soundboard works. With plywood the grain direction of the face veneers probably doesn't matter. I never made any that way, so I could be wrong.

The edges of the soundboard are trying to peel up, and MUST be captured under something that can hold them down. I use a 'rub rail' that is an L-shaped molding. The glue line along the side of the box is in shear, which is much better than loading it in tension. Rub rails that are simply doublers on the top surface don't work well in the long run.   

Alan,

Thank you so much for the information!

I’m going to do some shopping around for supplies, and a harp plan. Then knuckle down, and
get this thing going!

One last question, What would you say to hickory as a center laminate? I’ve got a piece that is
well quarter sawn, and just the right size to work with.

Thanks again,

Robert

_________________
Everything has beauty, But, not everyone see's it!

The big advantage of maple is that it's diffuse porous: there's less chance of getting a few pins into a weak area of grain. It's also more uniformly hard.

Alan!

That’s a good point! I’m going to do some research and find some rock maple!

Thanks again!

_________________
Everything has beauty, But, not everyone see's it!