Heavy lift for Santa Claus

[Ernie Miller]

Hi all,

I'm not getting any younger, and wood seems to be getting heavier - so I decided it was time, while I'm still able, to build a couple of instruments that will stay in the family. My eldest daughter, Kelly, has a six year old who is getting ready to take lessons so they're getting this for Christmas. I had planned to deliver it myself (they live in Syracuse, NY) but they decided they were coming down to NC for the holidays, so they won't actually get this bundle from Santa until April. I had my daughter go to my website and pick out the instrument she wanted and she picked the same instrument that I built for the Harpsichord Project. So we made this one a little fancier and included a lid painting by my wife. Hopefully the kids will enjoy it and they'll have something to remember grandma and grandpa by (hopefully in the distant future).

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year.

Ernie

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[Jim Creech]

Beautiful Harpsichord! Thanks for sharing!
BTW Your shop is entirely too clean and organized.

[Richard Wolf]

Beautiful as always. I see you now have e book plans. I think I may be purchasing them soon. How many hours do you think it would take a skilled woodworker, without any harpsichord experience, to build one of your instruments?
Thanks for sharing.

[Ernie Miller]

Beautiful as always. I see you now have e book plans. I think I may be purchasing them soon. How many hours do you think it would take a skilled woodworker, without any harpsichord experience, to build one of your instruments?
Thanks for sharing.

Thank you Richard. I've never broken down the construction time into hours for fear of getting depressed. This instrument (which is the same one in the e-book) took about 5 months to build. The woodworking will not pose any problems for you and you should be able to build the case in a couple of weeks. It's a lot like building a house - the framing goes pretty quickly but the interior finishing work seemingly takes forever. Most of the sub-assemblies are not difficult to build, but demand precise work and attention to detail. If you download the free demo from my site, it includes complete instructions for building the keyboard. This will give you a good idea of the type of detail work involved. Since the keyboard is, arguably, the most difficult part of the construction, I believe if you can build the keyboard, you can build the entire instrument.

Ernie

[Ernie Miller]

Beautiful Harpsichord! Thanks for sharing!
BTW Your shop is entirely too clean and organized.

Thanks Jim,

The shop may look clean, but nobody ever accused me of being organized. There are 55 drawers in my cabinets and opening any one of them is done at your own risk.

Ernie

[George Gyulatyan]

What a beautiful Flemish Single Ernie! I bet it plays as wonderfully as it looks.

[Ernie Miller]

What a beautiful Flemish Single Ernie! I bet it plays as wonderfully as it looks.

Thanks George. This is the second harpsichord I built from this Ruckers plan. The sound is quite full for a small instrument. You can hear a sound sample in a little video I made when I finished building the first one. Click here.

Ernie

[George Gyulatyan]

Thanks for that Ernie. It is absolutely beautiful, instrument, sound, performance.

Funny I'd come across this thread today. I've been putting on some harpsichord music in the car for my 2.5 y/o to listen to on our way to his daycare in the mornings. We just added the word "clavecin" to his repertoire of musical words this morning

[Richard Wolf]

Ernie, this is like a train wreck, I can't stop looking at it. For some reason, I have always been attracted to harpsichords ever since I visited Williamsburg where they are always working on one. I downloaded the beginning of your download, and your work is awesome. I really wish I had the time needed to build one, even though I can't play, it seems like a great project. I think you should post this in the main forum, because I am sure a lot of people are not seeing this. Once again, beautiful workmanship and thanks for posting it.

P.S. I posted a link for you in the main woodworking forum. I hope you don't mind!

[Dave Aronson]

WOW, that is amazing!

[Ernie Miller]

Ernie, this is like a train wreck, I can't stop looking at it. For some reason, I have always been attracted to harpsichords ever since I visited Williamsburg where they are always working on one. I downloaded the beginning of your download, and your work is awesome. I really wish I had the time needed to build one, even though I can't play, it seems like a great project. I think you should post this in the main forum, because I am sure a lot of people are not seeing this. Once again, beautiful workmanship and thanks for posting it.

P.S. I posted a link for you in the main woodworking forum. I hope you don't mind!

Thanks to all for your kind words. Richard - I don't mind your link at all. Being relatively new here, I thought a new thread could only be placed in its proper category. Thanks.

Ernie

[John Grossi]

Ernest, I am absolutely stunned by your craftmanship. Thanks to Richard for suggesting moving this thread to the main forum. A few years ago, projects were posted here. I still do not understand Sawmill having a seperate forum called "projects" and moving it way down the list. If anything, put it at the very top, next to "General Woodworking and Power Tool." Oh well, thanks again Ernest sharing this. John

[Roger Chandler]

Awesome, superb! I run out of superlatives!

[Charles McElroy]

Now I know what an artist is! Thank you. If I lived to be a thousand I would never be skilled enough to do that.