Cabinetmaker & Harpsichord Maker

The term harpsichord refers to a whole family of instruments — including large ones (generally just called harpsichords) as well as smaller examples like virginals and spinets.

The piano and the harpsichord existed concurrently for most of the 18th century. The piano was invented in Florence at the very beginning of the 18th century. However, pianos were not widely popular or generally available for purchase until much later in the century. The harpsichord operates differently than a piano. A piano produces sound with a hammer pounding a string or strings rather than a quill plucking a string when a key is depressed. A piano can produce different gradations of loudness or softness when pressing a key (depending on the velocity of key movement), and a harpsichord cannot.

Residents here in Williamsburg are known to have owned harpsichords in the 18th century — including the Geddy family and Governor Fauquier, pictured.

Some of the inner-working parts of a harpsichord are made from animal products —including pieces of crow quills, which are used to pluck the strings, and boar bristles, which act as little springs and allow the wooden tongue holding the quill to swivel the quill out of the way on the back down/passing back underneath the string.

The soundboard of a harpsichord serves to amplify the sound when a string is plucked.

Larger harpsichords, in addition to having a second choir of strings, sometimes had a third choir of strings which plucked an octave higher, and also sometimes had a second keyboard — that style of instrument is called a double-manual harpsichord.

Our cabinetmakers and harpsichord makers at the Hay Cabinet Shop use many tools, each serving different purposes. While a sharp tool is the most consistent favorite, we invite you to explore a variety of favorite tools that paint a nice picture of the two trades.

Made by our blacksmiths, this tool is just different enough from commercially available options and most antiques to make it special. It is well-balanced, comfortable to hold in various positions, and a great multi-tasker. The chisel excels at accurately trimming joinery because of its width, and its length allows for significant power generation. The flat back of the tool can also be registered against a reference surface and a portion of the blade can be used to make a controlled, guided cut. A versatile tool, the chisel can be used to hog off waste wood and make light paring cuts to clean things up.

The small drill press operated by a bow can be used to bore tiny pivot holes in harpsichord jacks (the mechanism that plucks the instrument’s strings). Based on a design from J. A. Roubo’s woodworking treatise of 1769, the tool makes for controlled, lateral work, with the drill supported in the stock and the jack body and tongue held to a small carriage. A dressmaker’s pin makes the bit. With the bowstring wrapped around the body, the worker rotates the drill back and forth while at the same time guiding the jack as the bit cuts. With practice and finesse, it makes it easy to drill dozens of jacks needed for the complete action of a harpsichord.

The toothing plane appears similar to a regular smoothing plane, but works very differently. It has a blade with tiny teeth at the end of the cutter instead of a straight knife edge, and the blade is at a much higher angle to the bottom of the tool. It has many uses but has proven particularly useful for planing woods that have very difficult, beautiful grain patterns. These tricky woods don't like to be smoothed with normal planes as they will tear out the fibers of switching wood grain, but the toothing plane isn't bothered by grain direction changes. It can be used to remove wood from a board without fear of a ruined job. The surface left behind is coarse, but tools like scrapers can be used for final smoothing.

The tuning hammer is a versatile multi-tool. Tuning pins on historic keyboard instruments weren’t standardized, so a tuning hammer was included with the instrument for tuning and maintenance. The hammered ends are used to strike the tuning pin to lock it into place in the wrestplank during string replacement. The socket on the end of the stem is for tuning. By putting the socket over the tapered head of a tuning pin, one can turn the hammer clockwise and raise the string's pitch, making it sharper, or turn it counterclockwise and lower the string’s pitch, making it flatter. The hook on the end allows one to wrap the loop on the end of a string when installing or replacing string wire and prevents misplacing the hammer.

A holdfast is a single piece of bent iron bar stock with a flattened pad on the end. It is used to clamp workpieces against the surface or side of a workbench. Many workbenches have several holes drilled into their top and sides, which are just a little bigger than the diameter of the long shaft of a holdfast. To hold a board down, the holdfast is slid into one of these holes with the pad resting on the workpiece. The holdfast is then tightened by hitting the top of the shaft with a mallet, causing the shaft to angle and wedge itself in the hole while pinching down on the board. Holdfasts can hold boards of all shapes and sizes in various positions, making them like an extra set of hands while working.