Chapter Eight

Fabricating the Neck and Pillar

This chapter will discuss lumber selection and various methods for reinforcing
the necks. Then I will outline the process I use to
-saw out the parts, fair the edges
-precisely mark and drill the holes in the neck
-attach the knee block

Lumber selection
With larger harps and higher tensions, lumber selection becomes more critical.
The pillar must be able to resist the torque of the strings twisting the neck. The
Neck will be cut into a curve and peppered with holes for the tuning and bridge
pins and cannot crack under load.

If the harp has more than 800-900 lbs of tension I will be choosier about the wood
I use to ensure the longevity of the instrument. I like to make the neck and pillar
from a wood that is at least as hard and stiff as Cherry.

Strength and hardness of several species used for the neck and pillar
Specie Modulus of Elasticity (Mpa) Side Hardness (N)
Bubinga 17,100 12,000
Greenheart 17,000 8,400
Sugar Maple 12,600 6,400
White Oak 12,300 6,000
Black Cherry 10,300 4,200
H. Mahogany 10,300 3,600
Black Walnut 9,800 4,000
From Wood handbook--Wood as an engineering material., Chapter 4, Mechanical
Properties of Wood, General Technical Report, FPL-GTR-113 from the U.S.
Forest Product Laboratory, 1999

The local DIY home center sells maple, but it is commonly a soft red maple. It is
not as suitable as Sugar maple or the other hard maples. When you go to
purchase wood, you may want to bring a copy of the tables from chapter 4 from
the Wood handbook (available for free on the internet). Don’t be bashful about
asking questions. If they can’t answer them, the wood may be a softer inferior
species.

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I will build harps from Mahogany or Walnut if the client requests it, but
modifications have to be made to the design - thicker parts, reinforcing around
pin holes. I still fret about the longevity of the instrument.

I live near Washington D.C. and am fortunate to have a number of well stocked
lumberyards within a two hour drive. The best ones will stock 40-50 types of
wood, rough sawn in 4/4, 6/4 and 8/4 thicknesses.

Lumbering Semantic
In North America, “8/4” is a nominal size for lumber. Logs are cut into planks
2” thick. After the plank has dried and been planed smooth, it will be 1.5-1.7
inches thick. Smaller harps can be made from 6/4 stock. If the harp is going
to be more than 30 strings I get 8/4 stock.

The width of the plank required will depend on the design, and I will often take
a plywood template of the neck and pillar to allow me to arrange parts on the
plank.

If you have trouble finding the right kind of lumber, you may have to laminate
two or three layers of thinner stock to get the thickness specified in the design.

Reinforce the Neck

When necks break, the fracture usually starts on the underside of the neck near
the treble end. I have found three effective strategies to prevent the neck from
breaking. If the harp has a strong harmonic curve, or more than 400-500 lbs of
tension, I use one or more of these techniques to preserve its integrity.

The neck is in tension along the bottom, the neck is usually narrow at the treble end, and
cracks start there on the short grain, usually near a pin or screw hole.

Reinforcing with Splines

Slots can be cut into the underside of the neck, using a router or table saw and
splines are glued into place. This effectively turns the underside of the neck into
plywood which prevents the stress crack from forming there. Because the slot
for the spline usually extends up into the area where the bridge pin holes are to

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 be drilled, I usually put the splines into
place after the blank is cut out, but
before the pin holes are drilled if the
knee block is attached.

To cut the first slot for the splines, I

crank the blade on the table saw so it
extends 1½” above the table. I set the
rip fenced on the table saw so it is ¼“
from the blade and run the neck along
the fence, stopping short of the knee
front corner. I shift the fence about an
inch over and cut the second slot.

I cut the splines out of hard maple with a zero clearance insert on the blade and
the grain of the spline runs along its length. The spline should slide in easily
but not be too loose. One end of both splines is cut to an arc that matches the slot
made by the blade. I slather the splines and slots with epoxy and push them
into place.

Necks with a strong curve or arch at the treble end for the player’s thumb will
preclude cutting spline slots on a table saw. Splines can be cut with a router bit
and slot cutter, but it is more tedious to fabricate the spline and most slot cutters
will only cut ½” deep.

Reinforcing with a Carbon Fiber patch

This is usually done after the neck and pillar have been glued together, and they
have been fitted to the sound box. I clamp the neck and pillar upside down in a
vice, and cover the sides of the neck with masking tape which makes epoxy clean
up easier. Carbon fiber usually comes in rolls that are 6” wide. I prefer
unidirectional tape, but have not had any failures with woven tape. I cut a strip
that is as wide as the neck, and long enough to cover the short grain running out
– usually 6-12”.

I mix a small batch of epoxy (15-30ml), and paint the wood with epoxy then
apply the Carbon fiber. I spread just enough epoxy on top of the patch to ensure
that the patch is wetted out. Two tips to make it a neater job ; Excess epoxy can
puddle and creates a more uneven surface, so remove excess pools. Second, the
less I mess with the cut edges of the tape, the neater the job will be.

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At one time I covered carbon fiber with a piece of veneer to hide it. I found the
patch is in a pretty inconspicuous place, and no one noticed it unless I pointed it
out, so I rarely try to cover it up now.

The bottom of a neck that has been reinforced with a Carbon Fiber patch.

After about 2-3 hours the epoxy

will gel, and I remove the masking
tape from the sides of the neck.
After the epoxy has cured for 8
hours or more I will scrape the
patch so it is smooth, rounding the
corners.

Laminate the neck

Most builders recommend skewing the grain from one layer to the next by at
least 15 degrees. Even when I used a sizeable collection of wood hand screws
and C clamps, it proved surprisingly difficult to keep everything aligned and to
generate nice tight glue line across the entire surface of the neck. I built five or
six harps with triple laminated necks, and none them have required subsequent
repair work.

I prefer to use splines or carbon fiber on solid timber because it is quicker and
looks better to me without the glue lines.

Another alternative is to use piano pin block material for the neck. Do not use fir
core plywood. I tried this on three harps and each eventually split along the soft
fir core. I’ve seen some Paraguayan harps made from birch aircraft ply (with
thin, 1mm laminations), but these harps were strung lightly with only 700-800 lbs
of tension.

Saw Out the Parts, Fair the Edges

I mark the outline of the neck and pillar from full sized plywood or paper
templates clamped onto the lumber. As I cut that line on the band saw, I pay
close attention to each line and how accurately it needs to be cut:

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Joining surfaces (JS) mate the neck, pillar and sound box to each other and need to
be cut accurately – go slow.
Bottom of the neck – stay outside the line to ensure you will have space to mount
the levers
Sides of the pillar, top of Neck should be smooth fair curves (SC) - I focus on making
a cut that does not have unnecessary bumps or wavering.

After the pillar and neck have been cut to shape, I smooth the outside curves
with a hand plane. The inside curves are trickier. I can usually do the pillar with
a short smoothing plane at a skew angle, but the sharper curves on the neck are
done with a spokeshave or sanding drums.

Areas NOT so smooth - I refrain from smoothing the joining surfaces till it is time
to assemble the parts together. These need to stay accurate, square and true. If
the neck and pillar are to be fitted to a stave back or round back sound box, I
don’t smooth the area near the knee block. This will be ground to shape then
they are fitted to the sound box.

Precisely Mark and Drill the Holes in the

Neck
One of the hallmarks of a well built harp are
the two rows of precisely placed pins in the
neck. My first three harps worked well
enough, but I was not able to replicate the
clean precision I saw on many commercially
made harps. Convinced the makers were
using a special bit, I asked Mark Hillman, a
finicky machinist and bagpiper maker what
he thought they could be using. He
explained that many amateurs cannot drill

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straight holes because they overload the bit, especially in the hard woods
frequently used for harp necks.

As the operator pulls the hand feed lever down and the bit enters the stock, a
dome of compression forms around the drill tip, increasing the likelihood that
the bit will bend and wander. If an overloaded bit is about to pass through the
other side of the neck, it will burst through, tearing large splinters from the edges
of the hole.

Most harp builders strongly recommend a drill press, mainly to ensure the holes
are perpendicular. Two other advantages are equally important. A drill press
provides precise depth control and controlled feed rates. A careful operator will
prevent the bit from becoming overloaded, frequently lifting the drill bit or
reamer out to clear the chips. The result is a clean straight hole. My fourth harp
neck looked as clean as any commercially made harp. Here is how I do it:

Drill the hole in a series of plunges clearing the chips from the flutes each time.

During the first plunge, the bit does not have to lift the chips too far out of the
hole. Subsequent plunges have to be shorter. Really hard woods may take 5
plunge/retract cycles. The key is to realize when the chips are no longer being
lifted from the tip of the bit. If the final plunge is only removing the last few
millimeters of wood, you will not get much tear out.

It takes me about two hours to drill the holes for the bridge pins and tuning pins
for a five octave harp. It is helpful to have the tuning and bridge pins you will
be using in hand. That way you can be sure you are using the proper sized bit
and drilling or reaming to the proper depth.

First, I drill the holes for the bridge pins. I set the depth stop so that ¼“of the
bridge pin head will remain above the surface of the neck. I find I can get a nice
clean hole (with no tear out) if I drop the bit very slowly into the work for the first
1/8” or so.

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<pic showing neck with bridge pins and tuning pins inserted>
The final bridge pin height is usually set with a block to work with the harp levers.
Depending on the hardness of the wood, the tuning pin will move up to ¼“ deeper as the
harp is brought up to tension. As the hole wears over the years, the pin will move
farther into the hole, so I tend to ream just enough to allow the strings to wrap nicely
below the hole, leaving room for wear down the road.

Next, I drill the holes for the tuning pins through the neck using a 3/16” bit.
Each hole may take 3-5 plunge/retract cycles on a full sized harp neck that is 1¾”
thick . Before I ream the holes, I flip the neck over. If you find yourself reaming a
neck on the same side that you can see the bridge pins, you have made a mistake.
I ream all the holes with a #4 reamer, setting the depth stop so the tip of the
reamer barely penetrates the neck. Here too, you want to watch to make sure
that you are not jamming the flutes full of shavings. I usually cycle the reamer
two or three times into the same hole. Reaming goes a lot faster than drilling the
initial hole because I don’t have to stop the spindle to clear flutes clogged with
shavings. Finally, I ream the holes on the bass end with the larger #5 reamer. I
usually use a #5 reamer with any wire core strings and nylon strings that are
greater than .050 in diameter. Again, I set the depth stop on the drill press so
the tip of the reamer barely penetrates the neck.

Attach the Knee Block

Most harps have some kind of knee block that helps resist the torque of the
strings. These are usually glued into place after all the holes have been drilled in
the neck for the pins. Most of the carving and shaping is done before the block
is permanently attached.

I had to repair one or two knee blocks that

had popped off when the harp was
dropped or banged, so I usually reinforce
this joint using one of two methods. You
can reinforce the joint with two 3/8“
dowels in the joint. If the harp is a round
back, the dowel on the back of the joint
(nearer the player) is cut shorter. I
usually make a blind dowel joint (one

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where the dowel will not show once the neck and knee block are glued together)
using centerpoints to mark the location for the holes to be drilled in the second
piece of wood. The other method is to laminate a fiberglass or carbon fiber
patch on the underside of the neck after it has been trimmed to fit the top of the
sound box. It is quicker to do than the blind dowels and can be done
concurrently with a reinforcement on the underside of the neck.

Placement of the dowels to reinforce the knee block

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