Hi all,
I’m in the middle of marbling the case but it will be a while before it’s finished. In the meantime, I thought I would take care of a few details on the bench that we built in Part 13. Here’s what it looked like at the end of construction.
After the decision was made to marble the case and use lid papers on the lid, it became obvious that the simply finished bench would be too plain for the instrument. So we’ll make the bench a bit more elaborate by using gold bands, papers, and medallions.
At this stage, the bench is only dry-fitted together so that I can use the lathe for sanding the finish on the legs. After masking off the mortises and tenons, the finish is applied using the same procedure that we used on the case. After several coats of paint have been applied and sanded, the gold bands are applied to the legs. To mask off the areas to be banded, thin strips of blue painter’s tape are used.
Four very thin coats of gold are applied. After the gold banding, the bench is glued together. The next photo shows the bench as it stands now.
Between the legs on all four sides is an unfinished area that will be papered. We prepare some strips of wood, ¾” high by 1/8” thick and pre-finish them with the same paint used on the bench. These strips are glued onto the bench leaving a 1 ¼” high space for the papers we will apply.
The design of the papers we will use are in my computer. This allows me to resize the design to fit the available space. We will use the same size papers on the bench and on the stretchers of the instrument’s stand, so we’ll print enough to cover both areas. While most builders use these papers in their raw state (black ink on off white paper), I find these papers look too new and modern for use on a harpsichord. To get around this, I color the papers after they have been printed. Each strip gets a coat of Pecan oil stain followed by 2 coats of orange shellac. Then they’re rubbed with 4/0 steel wool which is followed by 2 additional coats of orange shellac. Then, a final rub-down with steel wool is followed by a sprayed-on coat of satin polyurethane. Here are the papers soon after printing. The one darkened strip has had one coat of pecan oil stain.
After all of the finish is applied to the papers, they are cut apart into 1 ¼” strips using an e-xacto knife. Here’s what they look like.
Next, the paper strips are glued into place using cold hide glue.
The square section of unturned wood on the top of each leg will get a medallion glued to it. I found a suitably sized wooden medallion and made a rubber mold of it. (see Part 19)
When we made the rose in Part 19, I neglected to mention a couple of important steps.
First, it’s a good idea to glue the wooden original to the bottom of the wooden tray that will be used in the casting. When the liquid plastic resin is poured into the mold, it may seep under the original and lift it – thereby ruining the mold. Secondly, the plastic resin that is used duplicates the model exactly, but is far too slick and shiny to take paint. To solve this problem, we’ll powder coat the casting by using ..... powder. We’ll spray a release agent onto the rubber mold and then sprinkle powder (I use Gold Bond body powder) onto the mold, completely covering it.
A short burst of air from the compressor blows most of the powder away, but leaves a very thin powder layer which has adhered to the release agent. This is done before each casting (we need 8 of these medallions) and each cast comes out with a matte finish that accepts paint very well. The back side of each casting is smoothed and leveled by rubbing the casting on sandpaper glued to a flat wooden block.
Then we sand the top of the casting with very fine paper (1000 or 1500 grit) to eliminate any nibs etc. Once done, we paint the castings. In the next photo, the medallion in the middle is the original wooden sample surrounded by castings painted gold.
The castings are glued on using 5 minute epoxy. Tape holds the casting in position while the epoxy sets and provides enough clamping pressure to do the job.
After all the medallions have been glued on, the bench is finished.
All of the incidental case parts have been finished. Next time we’ll marble the case and do some more papering. At the same time, we’ll finish and paper the stand. In a few weeks, we just might get some sounds out of this puppy. Thanks for following along.
Ernie
I’m in the middle of marbling the case but it will be a while before it’s finished. In the meantime, I thought I would take care of a few details on the bench that we built in Part 13. Here’s what it looked like at the end of construction.
After the decision was made to marble the case and use lid papers on the lid, it became obvious that the simply finished bench would be too plain for the instrument. So we’ll make the bench a bit more elaborate by using gold bands, papers, and medallions.
At this stage, the bench is only dry-fitted together so that I can use the lathe for sanding the finish on the legs. After masking off the mortises and tenons, the finish is applied using the same procedure that we used on the case. After several coats of paint have been applied and sanded, the gold bands are applied to the legs. To mask off the areas to be banded, thin strips of blue painter’s tape are used.
Four very thin coats of gold are applied. After the gold banding, the bench is glued together. The next photo shows the bench as it stands now.
Between the legs on all four sides is an unfinished area that will be papered. We prepare some strips of wood, ¾” high by 1/8” thick and pre-finish them with the same paint used on the bench. These strips are glued onto the bench leaving a 1 ¼” high space for the papers we will apply.
The design of the papers we will use are in my computer. This allows me to resize the design to fit the available space. We will use the same size papers on the bench and on the stretchers of the instrument’s stand, so we’ll print enough to cover both areas. While most builders use these papers in their raw state (black ink on off white paper), I find these papers look too new and modern for use on a harpsichord. To get around this, I color the papers after they have been printed. Each strip gets a coat of Pecan oil stain followed by 2 coats of orange shellac. Then they’re rubbed with 4/0 steel wool which is followed by 2 additional coats of orange shellac. Then, a final rub-down with steel wool is followed by a sprayed-on coat of satin polyurethane. Here are the papers soon after printing. The one darkened strip has had one coat of pecan oil stain.
After all of the finish is applied to the papers, they are cut apart into 1 ¼” strips using an e-xacto knife. Here’s what they look like.
Next, the paper strips are glued into place using cold hide glue.
The square section of unturned wood on the top of each leg will get a medallion glued to it. I found a suitably sized wooden medallion and made a rubber mold of it. (see Part 19)
When we made the rose in Part 19, I neglected to mention a couple of important steps.
First, it’s a good idea to glue the wooden original to the bottom of the wooden tray that will be used in the casting. When the liquid plastic resin is poured into the mold, it may seep under the original and lift it – thereby ruining the mold. Secondly, the plastic resin that is used duplicates the model exactly, but is far too slick and shiny to take paint. To solve this problem, we’ll powder coat the casting by using ..... powder. We’ll spray a release agent onto the rubber mold and then sprinkle powder (I use Gold Bond body powder) onto the mold, completely covering it.
A short burst of air from the compressor blows most of the powder away, but leaves a very thin powder layer which has adhered to the release agent. This is done before each casting (we need 8 of these medallions) and each cast comes out with a matte finish that accepts paint very well. The back side of each casting is smoothed and leveled by rubbing the casting on sandpaper glued to a flat wooden block.
Then we sand the top of the casting with very fine paper (1000 or 1500 grit) to eliminate any nibs etc. Once done, we paint the castings. In the next photo, the medallion in the middle is the original wooden sample surrounded by castings painted gold.
The castings are glued on using 5 minute epoxy. Tape holds the casting in position while the epoxy sets and provides enough clamping pressure to do the job.
After all the medallions have been glued on, the bench is finished.
All of the incidental case parts have been finished. Next time we’ll marble the case and do some more papering. At the same time, we’ll finish and paper the stand. In a few weeks, we just might get some sounds out of this puppy. Thanks for following along.
Ernie
ccasion1
