My latest harpsichord repair and reconditioning project has produced some challenges that I have not dealt with in the past. The instrument is a Hubbard English bentside spinet. It is kit harpsichord built in 1984. The builder did a passable job but the instrument suffered a good bit from neglect and bad environmental conditions. The soundboard had 15 cracks for me to shim, it is warped a bit and I had to repair two nasty cracks on the bridge. You can see the bridge repair on one of the attached photos. The owner does not expect the instrument to be in like new condition. Her late husband built the harpsichord and she is planning to donate it to her church to be used in services on occasion.
I have a few questions for those of you who may have dealt with similar issues in the past or, I would appreciate anyone's opinion on how you would proceed.
1. The first question is the most complicated problem. In one of the photos you can see that the small cutoff bar is about 1/2 separated from the soundboard. The soundboard is concave in this area as can be seen in the photo with the straightedge sitting on top. The photo with the sticks on top of the soundboard shows the location of the cutoff bar and the large rib. Another photo shows the soundboard plate in the instruction manual.
I have been wrestling on how to deal with this problem. As I see it now, here are my options:
a. Do nothing for now. Let the owner know of the separation and should it become an issue; we can attempt a repair.
b. Cut an access hole on the bottom and attempt to reglue the bar to the soundboard. I believe this could be done by supporting the soundboard on top so that I can jack up the bar to the soundboard. I probably would use epoxy to ensure the glue joint will not fail again due to moisture content swings.
There might be other possibilities for this repair but these two are the best I have for now. Any similar experiences to share or thoughts?
2. The soundboard may have had one coat of shellac when it was built but I believe it would be best to give it another coat or two. Is it sacrilegious to use canned shellac as opposed to using flake shellac? Just lazy I guess; I have a can of Zinsser.
3. In the picture with the keys, you can see three keys that I have sanded and three that have not been sanded. There was some sort of staining that happened in the past and some of the spots are fairly deep into the wood. I believe that the owner will not be concerned with some light spotting but I wonder if there is any easy remedy to completely remove the spots?
I'm guessing that originally either a stain or possibly a shellac coating was used on the keytops. Can anyone confirm if a coating of some sort, or stain, was generally used on the keytops of the kit instruments? Would you coat or stain these keys?
As always, thanks for your help!
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[Don] [McKechnie,] [RPT]
[Piano Technician]
[
dmckech@ithaca.edu]
[Home 607.277.7112]
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