Lee Harps

Summer is not a good time to spend much time in the shop. The fact is that I’d really LIKE to spend more time there, but there are just so darned many other options for my time in the summer! That said, I really have been able to make a little progress.

The topic of today’s lesson is: the Neck Joint! Here is the part of the harp I’m trying to reproduce at the moment:

If you use your imagination here a bit, this is a sort-of rectangular version of the above which, as you can see, still needs a bit of work.

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, here are the steps I took in making that particular assembly.

First, I began by using epoxy to fasten two pieces of wood together to get the thickness I needed. This assembly is actually long enough to make TWO ram’s heads (in the remote chance I will screw up!)

I scratched my head a lot in deciding how best to design this joint. I’m not certain that my final decision was the best, but time will tell. Anyway, I chose to go with a sliding dovetail joint. I think this photo may show you what is meant by a sliding dovetail joint:

This joint consists of a dovetail cut on the end of the neck (harmonic curve) which slides into a stopped groove of the same shape that is cut into the yet-to-be-apparent ram’s head piece.

First, I decided to cut the dove tail. I carefully cut the end of the neck piece to the correct vertical angle (according to the blueprint). On this, I drew what I thought would be a good length for the dovetail and the angle of the dovetail sides that I thought might be best (don’t ask me for these figures – I simply do not remember. I would guess it is about 1 inch long, and I forget what angle I chose.)

Anyway, I placed a high, vertical fence on the table saw, angled the saw blade to the chosen angle, then after carefully setting the saw blade height and the distance from the fence, I ran the neck end thru the saw thusly, first cutting one side, then turning it around and cutting the other side:

Once that was done, I had what I had hoped for: A DOVETAIL!

Having done that, I then needed to have a groove in the “ram’s head block” into which to slide my dovetail. The first step for this was to set up a straight router bit to the exact depth of the dovetail length and cut, first, a straight groove down the center of the block.

Notice the dovetail shape drawn on the end of the groove. How does one make a dovetail-shaped groove? Had I owned a nice, long dovetail cutting router bit, I could have made both the dovetail AND the groove with that and done so with perfection. Since all my dovetail bits are only about 1/2 inch in depth, this was not possible. Therefore, I had to choose a bit more handwork in making my joint.

Since the saw blade was already set to the dovetail’s angle for the cutting of the dovetail, I kept the table saw blade at the same angle and, using a piece of scrap wood, cut a chisel guide to the same angle as the sides of the dovetail (that would be the piece on the right).

This cut was made by running the piece of wood thru the angled blade of the table saw like this:

Next, by clamping the correctly angled block of wood next to the still-vertical groove in the “ram’s head”, one can use the block to accurately chisel away the sided of the groove to the proper angle and width.

This must be done rather carefully with chisel and mallet, but it is very possible and here is what it looked like when finished.

You have a tail-shaped groove that is cut to allow the dovetail to slide into it — and so it did!

The tension of the strings will pull this joint firmly together. Only when the tension is applied will I know if my joint choice will have been adequate.

Anyway, the joint did fit rather nicely.

and it’s on to the pillar assembly.