Clavichord Day 20 - Sharps and Hitchpins

Today, we started by checking out the sharps. These are the little dark keys on the keyboard, and they are eventually glued onto some of the key levers we have already worked with. First, they each needed to be dulled a bit with the file and sandpaper, to get all the tool marks off of them and to dull all those sharp edges which would otherwise hurt the player's hands.


Keeping in with the decorative concept we began earlier, we decided to stain each of the sharps for more contrast on the keyboard.



While those dried, we picked up our handy nail set and tapped in the small hitchpins, each into its hole in the hitchpin rail.


Those that didn't have enough of a backward lean, against the eventual pull of the strings, were tapped from the side with a block of wood and hammer to get the right tilt.

A look at the hitchpins in place.


A bit of a short day. More work on the keyboard to come.