Workshop
During the later years of college, I wrote a 300-page book on building a harpsichord, replete with 140 pages of illustrations, three large drawings on mylar and all the information for making the fixtures, jigs and set-ups, and techniques.
Since that time, I have made over 50 accurate copies of case and trim moldings for router cutters as well as ten different arcade cutters, various leather punches, layout rules, punches for plectra and so on. "You simply cannot go to Home Depot to get a seventeenth-century case molding cutter".
Helpful Links
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Boston Early Music Festival
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Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society
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Harpsichord - Electronic Mailing List
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The American Musical Instrument Society
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Early Mucic America
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The Westfield Center for Keyboard Studies
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University of Michigan - Stearns Collection
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Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York City
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Yale University - Collection of Musical Instruments
The Harpsichord Mechanism
When the harpsichord key is pressed, a wooden jack is raised so that a quill or leather plectrum inserted into the jack tongue plucks the string. When the key is released, the jack falls back into place, the pivoted tongue allowing the plectrum to pass the string without plucking it.
Details
Shown below - detail from the Mozart fortepiano music rack and pedals (hand rubbed lacquer finish).
