Best way to keep a bird in is to lock her in chains. If you know what I am saying.
What's the last thing you Crafted?
- Thread starter koralis
- Start date
They'll be damned if some other chicken gets the highest perch. Maybe solid luan or something from the rafters to the roofline? Make it a "wall"
Yeah thought about that as well, but you know what...screw it, I'm just gonna let them roost in the rafters. Not going to have a battle of wills with a chicken. I'll lose!
Sort of a craft, but I stumbled into getting a harpsichord from a friend recently...
I didn't make it, but it was in pretty rough shape (missing some parts, clearly mice lived inside for a while), and I've started cleaning and overhauling it.
Couple dozen hours in now, or so, and I think it's basically cleaned (working on the smell....) I'll be refelting everything, probably cutting down the keyboard tray so I can make it a transposing keyboard, designing and 3d printing a full set of jacks (the bit that makes the key pluck the string), building a jackrail, adding a lid stick, and restringing, voicing, and tuning the whole thing. Oh and it needs legs.
Quite a beast of a project, especially given my relative lack of knowledge of harpsichords, but the mechanism is pretty straight forward and the materials aren't too expensive, so it will be a good project, I think.
I'm a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a cup of vinegar, and two boxes of baking soda deep in the cleaning and de-stinking. The first replacement felts arrived today, but I've got to get some more sizes and order the strings in the next few days. Since there's some mouse related debris under the soundboard and no way to get at it, I'll be taking a large holesaw to the bottom, cleaning inside and checking it out, then closing it back up with a cover. Hopefully that will tell me about the soundboard construction so I know if my stringing schedule (which strings of what material/size go where) will be ok for the tension loading on the soundboard.
I didn't make it, but it was in pretty rough shape (missing some parts, clearly mice lived inside for a while), and I've started cleaning and overhauling it.
Couple dozen hours in now, or so, and I think it's basically cleaned (working on the smell....) I'll be refelting everything, probably cutting down the keyboard tray so I can make it a transposing keyboard, designing and 3d printing a full set of jacks (the bit that makes the key pluck the string), building a jackrail, adding a lid stick, and restringing, voicing, and tuning the whole thing. Oh and it needs legs.
Quite a beast of a project, especially given my relative lack of knowledge of harpsichords, but the mechanism is pretty straight forward and the materials aren't too expensive, so it will be a good project, I think.
I'm a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a cup of vinegar, and two boxes of baking soda deep in the cleaning and de-stinking. The first replacement felts arrived today, but I've got to get some more sizes and order the strings in the next few days. Since there's some mouse related debris under the soundboard and no way to get at it, I'll be taking a large holesaw to the bottom, cleaning inside and checking it out, then closing it back up with a cover. Hopefully that will tell me about the soundboard construction so I know if my stringing schedule (which strings of what material/size go where) will be ok for the tension loading on the soundboard.
That's really cool. Restoration is definitely craft-worthy.
Btw, what are the keys made out of? I've never seen the black/white reversed on a keyboard. the sharp keys look like wood. The main keys are painted wood? natural ebony or something? (apparently black rosewood is likely?)
If it's natural, I'd encourage you to just polishing it up and keeping it. Needs some tlc, but it's neat.
Answered my own question...
https://www.thepiano.sg/piano/read/pianos-black-keys-were-white-and-white-keys-were-black-past
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There is a lot of variation in older keyboards, you can often find darker/lighter grain natural wood looks for keytops, and even the occasional instrument laid out in reverse (high notes on the left, low on the right, backwards of every modern instrument). This one in particular has veneers for the naturals (black keys) and light wood for the sharps, but both are glued to a different wood that makes up the actual key mechanism.
They were nasty when I got the keyboard out....
But cleaned, felts and tacks removed, and smothered in baking soda to remove the mouse stink, they're in better shape now. Haven't been able to clean the whole soundboard on account of the strings still being in there, but you can see around the edges that it will lighten up considerably!
Waiting on some parts now, but next step is to cut the hole for cleaning under the soundboard, then refelting the keys and keyboard tray to get that action to feel smooth in preparation for designing the new jacks.
They were nasty when I got the keyboard out....
But cleaned, felts and tacks removed, and smothered in baking soda to remove the mouse stink, they're in better shape now. Haven't been able to clean the whole soundboard on account of the strings still being in there, but you can see around the edges that it will lighten up considerably!
Waiting on some parts now, but next step is to cut the hole for cleaning under the soundboard, then refelting the keys and keyboard tray to get that action to feel smooth in preparation for designing the new jacks.
logical
bout to lose my job TODAY
Finished the mini backyard deck earlier this month. Our backyard was kind of sloped(you can see in the first before picture). So we had to have a retaining wall put in to maximize the space because HOA says we cant touch anything having to do with the fence. City life backyard...
Not pictured here is where I am standing we have built a pergola. Ill get a picture and out it on here later today.
Not pictured here is where I am standing we have built a pergola. Ill get a picture and out it on here later today.
Looks pretty sweet for such a small space. I'd like to see the pergola. I bought one for our back patio. Can't make everything...
ATI FURY-OUS
Active member
Last thing I made was in the fall of 2019. Still pretty proud of it. It lets our tenant in the walk-out basement apartment go from her door to her car without trudging through the mud or snow.
thats like a screenshot from an adventure game
Follow up to my liquor cabinet...
Made my doors, routed out a glass recess, added some custom cut textured glass (pattern called Moss), installed some pretty sweet Italian handles. Added a stack of Neodymium magnets in the upper-center corner of each that pulls to a screw I put in the frame to hold things closed.
Then I spent a couple of days drilling and re-drilling the hinge holes to get them all to hang properly and meet in the center (the left edge was not perfectly vertical.) Fussy fussy work. Hate that part.
But at the end of the day, have a nice cabinet that hides our shame when we have the lights off.
Or really shows things off if appropriate.
Doors open
And my wife was playing with a dim purple setting for a nightlight.
Made my doors, routed out a glass recess, added some custom cut textured glass (pattern called Moss), installed some pretty sweet Italian handles. Added a stack of Neodymium magnets in the upper-center corner of each that pulls to a screw I put in the frame to hold things closed.
Then I spent a couple of days drilling and re-drilling the hinge holes to get them all to hang properly and meet in the center (the left edge was not perfectly vertical.) Fussy fussy work. Hate that part.
But at the end of the day, have a nice cabinet that hides our shame when we have the lights off.
Or really shows things off if appropriate.
Doors open
And my wife was playing with a dim purple setting for a nightlight.
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Spencer
New member
Constructed a template for art work. Made all in copper and the pieces bent to the correct curves by hand with tools like pliers or soft grips. It fits on top of blank stretched canvas as a guide for placement of very think paint to get the desired shapes and eventually later in the process the desired color blending.
The acrylic paint will be around 1/8 inch thick sometimes up to a 1/4" for a thick textured look. Not an easy art form but hopefully worth it in the end. Mostly landscapes or plants done with an abstract look.
And the final templates will be made of plastic with a 3d printer. But the bigger plastic templates for the 3 feet by 2 feet paintings will probably be made with vacuum forming which I'd pay to have done at a local engineering business. The copper one I made is for testing because I'm too lazy to assemble the 3d printer I bought online a few months ago.
The acrylic paint will be around 1/8 inch thick sometimes up to a 1/4" for a thick textured look. Not an easy art form but hopefully worth it in the end. Mostly landscapes or plants done with an abstract look.
And the final templates will be made of plastic with a 3d printer. But the bigger plastic templates for the 3 feet by 2 feet paintings will probably be made with vacuum forming which I'd pay to have done at a local engineering business. The copper one I made is for testing because I'm too lazy to assemble the 3d printer I bought online a few months ago.
I for one, wouldn't mind if you took some step-by-step photos to watch your process.
Silent-Runner
Noli timere messorem
That sounds interesting. Mind to share the results?
After about three months, I'm basically done. Ended up:
Cleaning everything
Designing and printing registers, jacks, and tongues
Refelting everything
Designing and making a stand
Designing and making a lid stick
Designing and making a jackrail and printing the mounts
Making a new nameplate and its holder
Coming up with a new stringing schedule and restringing everything
Restaining to try for a match (it's close....ish)
I found a week or so ago that I could get a fair bit more sound out of the thing that I had originally voiced, so I'm going through and replacing all the plectra and then revoicing - probably at about 2x the volume it was before. Then back to learning to play - I've been revisiting a book I used for my class piano in college, but I'll be on to older stuff (originally intended for this kind of instrument) soon enough.