The Early Drawings

This was a very busy time and no pictures were taken during the construction. What is here represents a few of the notes and drawings that led up to the actual blueprints being made.

This was the first drawing.

Some notes

First drawing of a spiral bridge.

First drawing of a non circular shape with some ideas about a stand.

Spiral bridge with square of strings and circle of instrument.

This drawing showed different length strings with the longest at the middle of the fixed signs and the shortest at the equinox and solstices. The I Ching was supposedly discovered on the back of a turtle, hence the turtle association. Some ideas for openings on the sound board were shown.

This drawing added the trigrams and zodiac associations and new sound board openings.

Trying to find the right woods took some time. The hardwood birch plywood with hardwood birch core could only be ordered from Russia.

This is a list of tools I had to learn how to use. I had never worked with wood in a shop before and there was a big learning curve going on to enable me to use the equipment.

A drawing of sections of the spiral bridge.

A drawing of the remaining sections of the spiral bridge.

Drawing of the centre piece top view.

Drawing of the centre piece side view.

One of my weekly notes about what needed to be done.

My brother Gary made the centre piece on the lathe at his woodwind repair shop. With wood there is always a lot of sanding to do. My friend Michael Buyers helped a lot.

another note of work to be done.

This was the measurement of the length of each string on the harp. There were 64 measurement and 8 more strings would make up double strings which had the same length.

The formula for calculating the fret positions from a guitar fret spacing chart.

Yep! hand calculated!

Sixty-four string fret calculations. Some strings would only have three frets but the long ones would have up to 6.

The guitar fret spacing tables conversions had to be made from.

 

The end of the Fret Spacing Chart.

Frets had to be cut from one piece of whalebone on a band saw.

They were about 1/8 of an inch thick and 1/2 an inch long. They had to be sanded flat at the bottom, and beveled up to a sharp edge at the top. Most of the work was done on a sander, but there was over 50% damage..frets that cold be used….too thin, too fat, too short. In time all 30 frets were made.

This was the drawing to set where the  stars in each constellation would be inlaid on the harp.

A drawing of the first hammers to be made for the Celestial Harp.

One of the signs for people to find the Celestial Harp at the World Symposium for Humanity.