Lee Harps

It all started on Christmas Day when the Mrs. received a couple of new KitchenAid knives as gifts. I think it was December 26 when a post-a-note appeared on my computer monitor strongly suggesting that, since the NEW knives will not fit into the OLD knife rack, it might be nice if I would consider making a replacement knife rack. As the character, Rumpole, of the British sitcom series “Rumpole of the Bailey” says repeatedly under his breath about his wife: “She who must be obeyed….”

So here is the basic dilemma: 2 new kitchen knives (foreground), 1 very old (and filled, and ratty) hardwood knife block.

Not particularly wanting to recreate a larger version of the old knife block, I ventured into the cyberspace world of the Internet to see what I might learn there that would be helpful. I came upon the following design which I thought was 1) within the realm of my accomplishment and 2) was pretty darned clever! The part that stopped me was the $125 price tag (knives NOT included)!

You can visit the site at:

http://www.greenergrassdesign.com/martinrobitschschaschlik.html

Someone else had, on their site, made a very sculptured version of this same thing which I liked even more, so being the design thief that I am, I felt sure I could replicate something in this order for a few cents LESS THAN $125! To that end, I went to visit my local restaurant supply store and found various length bamboo skewers available.

I opted for the 10-inch version which, if I recall, were $1.69 per bag of 100. I purchased about 1500 of them, not knowing how many I would need. (I think my knife rack used only about 9 bags of the skewers.)

Wanting to see if we liked the concept in practical terms, I fashioned a down-’n-dirty quick prototype for the kitchen, using 1/8-inch plywood scraps.

With knives in place, it looked something like this:

The photo doesn’t show it well, but because the skewers were not packed in tightly enough in this prototype, the 5th knife from the right is sinking, with the handle moving down into the skewers. I made the prototype to accommodate the full 10-inch long skewers.

We decided 10 inches was too high for this to be located under our upper cupboards, but the concept seemed valid, so I proceeded to build an 9-inch version as the final item. Using some eucalyptus scrap lumber that was left over from building my current personal “e-harp”,

(hey, cut me a break! I can include harp photos if I like; after all, this is the “LeeHARPS” blog!) I cut out the pieces (having too much fun to take photos….) cutting 45 degree cuts on the corners. The corners were then joined with masking tape on the outside, Tightbond glue was applied, and the box was clamped together with strap clamps.

If you look carefully, you can see how, by cutting the corner joints on a 45 degree angle, one can have a “wrap-around” effect with the wood grain.

With the corners glued, I installed a bottom, routed out the decorative side openings and, using a jig to cut diagonal slots in the corners, I was able to glue thin walnut strips into the slots, strengthening the corners and giving the box a decorative touch. I then applied fillers and spray-can lacquer as a finish and it was time to install the skewers. First I had to determine what the new skewer length would be (skewers come in even lengths – 6-8-10-12-inch).

Secondly, I noticed that the skewers were not totally even in length, so decided to invert them, point down, into a metal tea can to establish a common level for the pointed tips.

I thought of different ways to evenly hold the skewers for cutting and decided in the end to use a very handy shop item I use for many purposes called “flat twine”:

This product is like a very loooong roll of stretchy saran wrap with a handle. As you apply it, you stretch it and, after several wrappings, it becomes very tight.

With flat-twine-wrapped skewer bundle still in tea can, and holding the can bottom against a wood block on the miter guide of the bandsaw, it was very easy to cut the skewers to length and not have the cut-off pieces flying all over creation.

While doing all this, I was trying some new technics with my camera, (F-stops, delayed shutter, etc.) and, in the act of doing so, learned a valuable lesson: HOLD ON TO THE BUNDLE WHEN RUNNING IT THRU THE BANDSAW BLADE!

Here I was holding only the can and the blade made the bundle of skewers go NUTS! I had pieces of skewer all over the place! I did have to discard a portion of that bundle, but I did not lose any digits nor did I shed any blood in the process. (Rarely does one happen to get photo documentation of causing stupid things to happen, and I guess that is a good thing!)
When all was said and done, the skewers installed and the knives inserted into the new rack, it seems to have turned out reasonably satisfactory. I’ve heard NO complaints from “she who must be obeyed”.

As with most of my projects these days, a sprig of wheat seems to appear somewhere on it.

Imagine that: There is wheat on my harp also!

Coasters anyone?!

It’s difficult to believe, but it has been over 2 1/2 months since I had made an entry to this site. Happily, I’ve been in excellent health, the marriage is still holding together, the cat has not died, we’ve not had any natural disasters (locally, that is) and all is well. It’s just that, for a person who should be retired, there are just too many opportunities for fun things to do, with there being limited time left over for sharing those “good times” with my readers (EITHER of them….)!

Since this is primarily a photo blog and since my memory seems to fail from time to time, I’ve decided to use my photo collection from the past few months as a basis for the following entry. I think I have well over 50 photos earmarked for this posting, so unless you have a bit of time to spare, you may want to abort for now and come back later.

It’s been almost a non-winter here in PA thus far, but the autumn colors were quite beautiful. Here are some colors I found in the Carlisle, PA area.

I had occasion to take an old computer to a collection point in the Newville area and happened upon these sights.

For much too long I’ve wanted to organize our garden shed. As you can see here, it NEEDED it!

After having spent the better part of a whole day working on it, here is how it looked afterward.

In November, I had signed up to attend an Irish Weekend (I don’t think I have a drop of Irish blood in me….). It was held at the historic Hilltop House in Harper’s Ferry, WV.

Gatherings like this are for the enjoyment of the music, but also to afford would-be musicians like myself an opportunity to take classes in playing the instruments of one’s choice. This was a 3-day event and I chose to take classes with Cliff Moses. Here he is teaching a hammered dulcimer class.

Here you can see the top of my hammered dulcimer, facing Cliff Moses. In addition to hammered dulcimer, Cliff also taught classes in concertina. This is my friend mark playing his concertina.

The Hilltop House is a very old, historic inn and is located on the very top of the hill overlooking the valley below where Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia all come together, separated only by the rivers. This is the view I had to endure as I look out my 3rd floor bathroom window on Sunday morning.

My friend Mark is remarkably fluent on numerous instruments. Here he is playing a fairly obscure bagpipe called Cornish pipes.

This is an example of another type of bagpipe called a Galician bagpipe which comes from the Brittany section of Spain. The player is John Skelton.

There were big fiddle players,

little fiddle players…

(this little girl was 4 years old and walked all around the inn playing “Road to Lisdoonvarna”).

There were concerts,

There were even REDHATS! These ladies were having a redhat outing to Harper’s Ferry, unrelated to the Irish Weekend.

The activities I’m relating to you here are some of the reasons my time in the workshop for the latter quarter of 2006 has been minimal. Here are some more reasons:

Unknown to me, my lovely spouse had arranged with a lady at church to receive some plantings of rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susan) plants to be planted at our house. The call arrived that the ladie’s gardener had filled a bucket with plants and we (I) could come pick them up. As I was driving out the driveway to do so, I could not help but stop and admire the goldfinch at our feeder swinging himself upsidedown to partake of the niger seed.

I had never been to the home of the lady who had the plants, and en route could not help but enjoy more fall colors as I gazed across a pond to see the ducks there.

The next surprise that awaited me was the SIZE of the bucket of plants! It was huge and heavy. Fortunately there was a man there who helped me lift the container into the back of my minivan. Once home, creating new beds for the Black-eyed Susans proved to be quite a workout as well. (So, what can I say beside, “Yes, dear!”?!)

November also found me spending two days with local 6th grade classes giving my “Log to Lute” presentation. Some years ago I felt it essential that, if, as a harp builder, I chose to call myself a “luthier”, it would be essential that I should actually have the construction of a lute in my portfolio! When my father died in 1996, I rescued a dirty log from the front of his workshop which, once split open, turned out to be nice Pennsylvania cherry wood. From this log I built a 6-course (12-string) lute from drawings made from a lute built in 1532. A teacher friend, knowing that I had built a lute, asked me to speak to her 6th graders about the lute, and I’ve been doing it ever since for the past 6-8 years! It is tied in with their Renaissance program.

This year I was given really LUXURY quarters for my presentation: The sunken study area in the school library. Here is a photo of my “props” all set up before the first class of the day.

Here is am playing for the students the single piece I know to play on the lute.

Here is a young lady playing, for the first time, a hurdy-gurdy which I built. It sounds pretty bad and I show it to them for comic relief.

The students also get a huge pleasure from splitting wood using ancient tools called a froe and mallet. Tuning pegs require split wood to give them the required strength for tuning stringed instruments.

Our woodworkers club was invited by the York club to have a booth at the York Woodworker’s Show. I volunteered to help “man the booth” for a few hours on a Saturday in November. This is our booth showing some “artifacts” displayed by members of the club.

Just for fun, I took along some wooden rhythm toys I had made as Christmas Gifts back in the ’80’s, and learned that even adults can find pleasure in playing with them.

This one happens to be a dancing cow. I had also taken along my St. Francis harp for display. This young lady spent quite a bit of time playing it.

Early in 2006, our daughter, who is a museum person (sorry, Jen, that I couldn’t describe what you do more elegantly) took a new position with the B&O Railroad Museum in Ellicott City, MD. Finally, in late November, her mother and I managed to visit the museum for the first time. We made a day of it, and here are a few of the photos I took there.

This is the main building of the museum.

Here is a view of the platform located on the back side of this building.

I’ve always wanted to see the inside of a real caboose, and here is how it really looks in there:

In an adjacent freight building is one of the finest permanent model train layouts I’ve seen.

Apparently set up by a local model train club, here are a couple of sample photos of the layout.

My good wife also had a birthday in November, so I opted to bake her a Birthday Pie rather than a birthday cake. This pumpkin pie turned out to be quite delicious!

In the midst of all this activity, I did manage a tiny bit of shop time, and managed to form a few harp shells. Here is a cherry, lap harp shell still in the vacuum press waiting for the glue to dry.

As you may have guessed, I’m a bit of a musical instrument nut and have always been fascinated by instruments of all kinds, particularly those that are more unusual. One Sunday morning in church we had a guest trumpeter as a soloist. He was quite skilled at trumpet and, in addition to the standard trumpet, played a small piccolo trumpet (very high pitched):

and, even more unusual, a valveless Baroque trumpet:

On the Baroque trumpet, all notes must be formed with the lips, there being no valves! Very difficult, but this gentleman did it so very well! Interestingly, there are a couple of tiny holes similar to recorder holes that are used as necessary to help refine the intonation of certain notes. It was fascinating to see and hear him play.

As November ended and Thanksgiving had passed, it was time to begin thinking about Christmas. I did a rude thing and decided to treat myself to a couple of new Christmas “toys” for the workshop, and began by replacing the vintage old drill press I had purchased used over 30 years ago.

One of the reasons I replaced it was to refine my ability to accurately drill the holes for the new harps I have in progress. I purchased what is called a Rikon “radial” drill press and also purchased for it a laser marker.

Each of the yellow things (above) send out a laser beam. By adjusting them to create crosshairs, one can simply slide one’s workpiece under the laser and know that the drill bit will bore a hole accurately where the beams cross.

It seemed appropriate for a harp maker since a harp neck of a 36-string harp requires the drilling of 108 holes!

Several people in our woodworking club have gotten into making wooden pens. Thanks to their bad influence (thanks, Kari!), I’ve decided to try it myself. Again, I had a vintage Sears wood lathe for which I had difficulty finding accessories, so I decided to trade up my old lathe as well.

This I replaced by a well-reviewed Rikon lathe. Here is the back of the lathe showing how I enlarged and modified the tool holder.

Having gotten that all set up, I was able to, in fact, turn out a couple of pens!

Ah, Christmas! The stockings were hung by the chimney with care….

I had the pleasure of having our son’s help with decorating the tree….

I purchased for my wife a couple of new kitchen knives and found a note on my computer saying the new knives would not fit into our wooden knife block; could I please remedy this?!

A bit of Internet research netted me this design for knife storage. Here is a quick prototype – a simple box filled with pointed, bamboo skewer sticks purchased at a local restaurant supply. The final version of this will be made with a bit more craftsmanship and is partially constructed, but will have to be the subject of a later entry when it is completed.

A real plus for having our son home was that I was able to steal from him some photography technics, use of F-stops and the like, which I have never understood. He took a forry into my now deceased garden and returned with some truly amazing and artful photos. While my efforts are not nearly as expert as his, I’ve been having a good time trying. I’d like to share with you some of the photos I’ve taken.

We have decorative grasses which grow to about 6 feet tall in summer, and turn brown or tan in the fall, still putting on quite a show. Here are some “up close” photos I’ve taken of them:

Do you remember the photos I had taken this summer of the bees harvesting necter from the pink flowers? Here is a photo of those same flower heads after the frost has turned them brown.

One of the joys I have found with using low F-stop setting is the detail one captures! My current camera, a Cannon S3-IS, permits manual F-stop, ISO and shutter speed settings and I am now, for the first time, teaching myself to use these features.

The Christmas season was a bit of a blurr for me this year with numerous playing engagements with the ensemble I play with, so by the time I had participated in a rehearsal and three Christmas Eve day services at church, I was pretty much a basket case as midnight arrived. Christmas day was delightful with family and good eating and it was a chance to appreciate all the wonderful blessings we have been given.

By the time New Year’s Eve arrived, I was, once again, rested up and had a most enjoyable evening in Harrisburg. Here is downtown Harrisburg around 8 PM New Year’s eve, all ready for the events to follow.

The huge Moravian star continued to hang over the chancel in our church, having been placed there on Christmas eve.

A lovely concert by the New Holland Band, Pierce Getz, organ and a female vocal soloist was held from 10 PM till midnight.

And the evening culminated with delightful fireworks, all set off right on the Harrisburg square in front of our church. The steeple to the left is Market Square Church.

Happy New Year one and all!!

Remember the “Tin Harp” entry some time ago? Out of the blue, the cousin of the man who built this harp found my site on the Internet and began corresponding about it. I referred her information to Pam, the owner of the harp, and here is the information they exchanged which we were so desparately seeking. This, I must tell you, is an all-text entry, but most interesting! A special thanks to Catherine Biggs for referring us to her cousin and harp builder, Earl Thompson. (I’m sorry it took me so long to get this all posted. I think you will find Earl’s history of the Linrud harps most enlightening. As it turns out, it is NOT a “tin” harp, but rather a fiberglass instrument!)
Catherine (Linrud) Biggs Says:
November 4th, 2006 at 11:58 am

Well I can tell you who made the harp!! My cousin Earl Thompson. He comes from a long line of instrument makers and musicians. His grandfather was a harp builder and his mother a harpist who even played for the Eisenhowers. His father made violins. I grew up playing this exact model plus a smaller lap version. Email me if you want his current contact information.

Dear Catherine,

I was so excited to receive the forwarded copy of your email to Lee. I am the owner of the Linrud harp that he featured on his web page. I bought it in a yard sale in Fairfax, PA about 5 years ago. It needed a little repair work as a crack had formed where the arm and column meet, so we fixed that, Lee helped me re-string and clean it, and now I am taking lessons to learn how to play. I just adore this lovely little instrument. It has amazing sound and it so easy to play. But I have so many questions about it. If you would not mind sharing some contact information for your cousin, I would be so grateful. If he would prefer, you can give him my contact info.

Again, thank you so much for responding to Lee’s posting.

Pamela (Last name deleted)
Hello Pamela,
My cousin Earl Thompson can be reached at the following email addy: (deleted for privacy).He currently lives outside of Adams, Oregon. I will forward this email to him as well.
I am glad you like the harp. I really loved playing when I was a kid and learned to appreciate the remarkable workmanship that went into making these instruments after playing a number of other designs. Like I said, there is a very interesting history of this harp and our family. He is not in the best of health so if you don’t get much from him feel free to call or email me.

I received two emails today from Earl Thompson. One came in response to my letter to Catherine, which she forwarded to him. The second in response to my letter that he received an hour later. I included a picture of the harp that you had taken to be sure he would recognize the instrument.

Here are the letters:

It’s good to hear from someone that has one of my harps. For some years, we lived in Clarksville and near the Triadelphia resevour out between Washington D.C. and Baltimore. I have made over 1200 of that model harp and near 1400 of the smaller one. That harp you have was made while we lived in Riverside California between 1975 and 1979. We moved up here to Oregon in 1979. I have not finished a harp since about 6 years ago. I am 79 myself now and almost 4 years ago I had bypass surgery and have not had any energy to do any work since. I have a nice shop building here I built myself and I wanted to build some larger, full size harps. But that never did take place. My Grandfather Linurd made 6 large full size harps. I wish I had one of them. Last I knew, there was one in Brooklyn New York. But I do not know who it belongs to now. I did have a lot of problems with the wood over the years. I have rebuilt several harps like yours. One fell out of a car? I do not know how that ahppened, but it was fixed while there in Clarksville. One of my smaller harps is in a 1982 movie, The Tempist. It was made while we lved in Riverside. One day in 1977 A woman went in to the Lyon & Healy harp salon in Hollywood and asked about a small harp. Mr Woldridge that was tne manager of that store for Lyon & Healy, told the woman about me. She calld and the next day came out to Riverside 60 miles and bought one of my smaller model harps and 3 years later someone told mur daughter that one of my harps was in that Hollywood movie. I have a copy of that movie and it is not available any more. It’s kind of a dumb movie and I was lucky to get a copy of it on the internet. Well, you said you had some questions about the harp. You are welcome to write to this address and ask the questions. But I really do not feel like doing any repair work right now. I have my mothers 85 year old Lyon & Healy model 23 harp here and it needs work too. But I will be glad to answer any questions you have. And I do have a lot of parts. If you would rather write by snail mail. My address is (deleted for privacy purposes….)

Your e-mail message just arrived, after I sent one to you. It is interesting to hear about the harp. As I said my my message to you just a while ago. The metal sound box, is not metal. The one piece fibreglas body was made for me in Cleveland for a while by a man that made fibreglas things for the governemnt. I made the bodys myself for some years. I started this work in 1954 after my mother had visited Melville Clark in Saricuse New York. He wanted to make an all fibreglass harp and made several. I have one of the first ones. The harps I made were made with hard maple wood, mostly from upper Pensylvania, and New York State. I tried several out of Western maple, and it is much to soft. That harp has a total tension on the strings of over 1200 pounds. So the harp has to be strong. Harpo Marx ask for and I sent him one of my first harps in 1956. He sent me pictures of him playing one and he died in 1978 I think it was, a year before we moved west. I didn’t get to meet him. He lived out in Cathedral City near Palm Springs and I wish I could have met him. He liked my harps. My mother was the one that promoted me makeing harps. I myself played the harp from my age of 6, until I was, well, about 8 years ago and I am 79 now. I have played in 6 different orchestras over the years. I have not touched a harp string now is 6 or 8 years. I just don’t feel like it. I had trouble selling an all fibreglass body harp for some years and was just starting to sell them well, while in Riverside. Orders were comeing in faster then I could make them. But I was tired of small harps and had some good ideas for a full size all fibreglass harp. Fibreglass is the best thing about my harps. How many wood bridges do you see now days? Wood is nothing but trouble. I spent a year here building a shop building, then things fell apart here and the fulll size harps never did get started. Now I am too old for it. And the money has run out. I used to know a lady in Seattle that bought over 175 of my harps. She could teach you, and did, over 100 and more people to play any tune on the harp and make money at it. She had one student Lloyd Lindroth, ops. I don’t know how to spell his first name. Anyway, he was in the navy band in Washington and in 1984 I think it was, was playing in Los Vagas Nevada and makeing over $150,000. a year. Edith was something. At one time she taught a 16 year old girl how to play a large harp and the girl went on to Hawaii and make $1200 a week playing in the restaurant in a hotel in the evening. $1200 a week and room and board in a hotel at 16 is not bad for a young girl. Edith was a good harp player. She could play anything Bach to boogie. And she could start on Bach and be playing boogie before you could realize it. She lived on North 50th in Seattle west of I-5 and always had a harp in her front window. She played in hundreds of weddings in the Seattle area. She died in 197??? Ops, I don’t remember. She was a fun to know woman. She owned over 300 harps in the Seattle area and rented out many of them. Time passes on! ! ! ! Best Regards, Earl T.