tuning keys

[Simon Chadwick]

I have been making tuning keys recently for harps. This is my first in this series, with a fabricated brass socket to fit non-standard rectangular pins. I have also been doing ones with machined square sockets in various sizes, from various woods, including some decorated with paint or gilding. This has been a fun project and I have plenty of "artistic" ideas for unusual future styles.



(I was going to attach the image but the attach file thing didnt work!)

[Clay Schaeffer]

Hi Simon,
Nice looking tuning key!
Do you have any suggestions for making inexpensive tuning pins for small harps?

[Nicholas Blanton]

Very nice. Some years back I got interested in making small tuning hammers . For patterns to copy I used a reprint of the old Richard Timmins & Sons catalogue , a maker of what were once called "toys" ( small tools and metal objects), in Birmingham, published by Studio Editions in 1994 as The Victorian Catalogue of Tools for Trades and Crafts (It's a wonderful book, many more varied hand tools were available than we have...) Anyway, doing a few decorative turnings on the outside of the shaft was not too hard- though it took some filing, also. And coming up with just the right-sized mandrel to make a square tapered hole that would grip the pin and not wiggle was tricky. Too deep and it would hit the string windings and be too loose, too shallow and it would not grip enough of the pin. But that got solved.

A length of annealed drill rod worked fine, held in a chuck or collet. The simplest thing was to drill a pilot hole, in one end, for the mandrel and use that hole to support the piece with a live center. Then turn the outside profile, cut the piece off the end of the rod, heat the business end to a dull red and hammer it down over the tapered square mandrel, to form the square drive hole. Then chuck up the thing in the lathe and touch-up or chase the outside turning, to clean up damage. But the chasing didn't work too well; using this method produced maybe 30% bad ones, too bent or distorted to be used.

So, I tried making the tapered hole first, before turning the profile. Then I had no problems with distorting or damaging the turned profile. Instead; I ran into temper problems. The piece would harden somewhat during the forcing of the tapered hole, and had to go through an annealing, to soften it enough turn the outside profile. But I would still get hard spots, no matter how long and carefully I annealed, and it was hard to turn the profile, let alone file it to finish, with hard spots. The reject rate was , still, about 30%. I noticed that workable t-tuning hammers were about $15, and I was having a hard time getting $20 for one of mine- of which I could make perhaps 5 in a long, annoying day. Not what you would call cost-effective .Then somebody told me I should have them investment cast. Which made me explore investment casting procedures for a while, ponder how to go about it, ask for and get conflicting answers on how to make a wax mold.......and when the learning curve for that kept getting steeper I gave up. But in the back of my head, I still think I ought to make them. Somehow.

[Simon Chadwick]

Clay, I have an idea that in the old days tuning pins were one of the most expensive parts of the harp.

Nowadays you can buy standard taper tuning pins pretty cheaply - I get mine from Dan Speer at Argent Fox music. I have been buying blanks and hammering the drives, that takes a fair bit of time though.

To get any cheaper than that you can use "zither pins" which are straight micro-threaded pins which go into blind holes but I think they are horrible to actually use to tune a harp.

I like your method of forging the socket Nicholas. I might have to try this. Trouble is the most luxurious handmade harp pins (which need the most expensive handmade keys!) are brass and so need a brass pin. Casting is not my scene at all. I have been buying in pre-made sockets from a clock key maker which work fine. I am not aiming for the "bread and butter" market but the high end art market - there are plenty of people who have luxury handmade decorated one-off custom harps, it seems odd when they use an industrial plastic-handled key to tune it every day.

[Simon Chadwick]

PS Nicholas you must know Dan Tokar? He has made strings and other stuff for me.

[Clay Schaeffer]

Hi Simon,
Thank you for the information. Do the taper pins from Argent Fox already have the square end for fitting the tuning key?

[Simon Chadwick]

Yes Clay they do. Dan is very approachable, ask him for what you want and he will try to oblige!

[Nicholas Blanton]

Simon,

Why, yes, Dan's a good friend. There are a few of us who meet once a week at a local restaurant to eat lunch and solve all the world's problems. No one has yet offered us any position of authority, however. Or even paid for lunch, for our being so wise.

In the harp he did, for pins Dan used either #6 or #7 taper pins ( one source is Granger http://www.grainger.com/content/catalog ... tPage=2940) They are reasonably cheap, it's not hard to grind or file flats on the big end, and the reamers are also readily available ( I would get a spiral fluted reamer if I was going to do a bunch of holes, as it cuts wood more smoothly than straight-fluted ones).

The advantage you've got with these over zither pins is the flats can be on one end of the pin and the string wrapped onto the other, which sticks out the other side of the harmonic curve piece ; it seems to make tuning a harp less awkward.