Lee Harps

One of the things we woodworkers like to do is see what other woodworkers are doing. Here I hope to post photos of some of the projects I’ve completed over the years. I suspect most of the photos will be of harps, however one forgets having done certain projects until photos emerge to serve as reminders.

What are posted here at the moment are photos that I’ve simply dumped at random onto this page awaiting further page refinement. I will, most likely, add a few explainations and comments over time, but am currently just sifting thru my photo collection.

(click on photos to enlarge)

One of my lap harps with oval stand that attaches with a single knob and screw. This one is made of butternut and has owner-requested carved lettering and designs.

This was an interesting project. This is a chess board I built for a black man who is blind and loves to play chess. It is made of walnut and maple, the “black” squares are tangibly higher than the lower white squares, and like a travel game, each chess piece has a dowel pin on the bottom to fit into a hole in the center of the square. When blind folks play chess, each player has a board and, using touch, calls out their moves to the other player who adjusts his board accordingly as the play continues. The chess pieces were his.

This is another “lap harp” with stand, this one made of walnut with a walnut veneered soundboard.

This is the only wire-strung harp I have built. It is patterned after the Trinity College harp that is in a museum in Dublin, Ireland. Much of the detail is my design as the original harp is so old and worn that many of the details are no longer distinguishable.

This is Sally holding a maple/walnut lap harp that I built which her husband purchased for her as a gift. Sounds like there should be ice cream involved, doesn’t it?

This is a scanned photo (the harp predates digital cameras) of a Tara harp I built from blueprints purchased from Robinson’s Harp Shop in California. It is made of walnut and has already outlived its original soundboard. Eventually I hope to post a page of “BUMMER!” photos showing some of the things that can go wrong, like failed soundboards, etc.

This is a more recent variation on the lap harps pictured above. I have developed the vacuum bag technology for molding rounded harp backs, and this was an early round-backed lap harp. It is made of solid cherry and cherry veneers.

This is the harp design that excites me most at the moment. It is based upon the string layout of the Musicmakers’ “Regency” harp which, for my musical taste, is one of the finest sounding folk harps available today. The neck has been constructed using a naturally laminated “knee” from a larch tree harvested in snowy Maine. The pillar is larch as well. It has a rounded soundbox. Behind it you can see the rigid, roll-around case (looks like a closet with wheels). This harp is owned and played at many events around the area by our own blind harper, Tom Herald.

This harp is exactly what it looks like: it is a PVC Pipe Harp! This was built from a kit currently marketed by John Kovac and, I must admit, is more of a conversation piece than a serious instrument. The “kit” consists of a whole bag of guitar tuners, some nylon harp string, a set of directions and a DVD showing John playing the thing. It also includes a “shopping list” for PVC parts that one takes to the plumbing shop hoping they carry all the parts. Last summer, I accidently bumped my PVC pipe over, and it is now a broken harp. Time will tell if I ever decide to restore it to its original greatness….

This is a pretty little lap harp that is owned by my friend, Lynn, and is made of poplar wood — not a wood one would think of as an instrument wood. I’ve had fun, over the years, trying out various wood varieties in my harp building to see how it might perform as a harp. I love the painting on this harp which I commissioned artist, Pat Craig, of Carlisle, PA to paint for me. She did such a beautiful job and I think she used a piece of antique Russian china as an inspiration for the design.

This is one of my very first lap harps and is owned by my good friend, Susan Miller. The “embattlement” on the column was an attempt on my part to make it a little bit “special”. Compared to my more recent harps, it lacks some of the design refinements I currently try to incorporate into my harps.

This is one of the more ornate harps I’ve built. I could write a book about the time I’ve spent working on this harp, but will save those stories for another time. It is made of curly maple, it has a much more refined embattlement than Susan’s harp above, it is based upon the “Tara” harp described above, and has rather ornate carvings and carved lettering phrases based upon the “Prayer of St. Francis”: “It is in giving that we receive.” “Where there is sadness, let me sow joy.” “Make me an instrument of Your peace.” St. Francis is now sporting its THIRD soundboard, all changed in an effort to improve the tone of this instrument. I will be sharing photos of the latest soundboard installation as a separate post at some point…. To the right is a closeup of the scroll carved on the embattlement. Anyone willing to try to carve a scroll (or ANYTHING) using curly maple is a bit nuts! The green spheres on the pillar of this harp are malachite rocks (subject of yet another story at another time…..)

This is an interesting harp: In its former life, it was a church pew in the choir loft of Mechanicsburg Presbyterian Church! When the church was remodeled, several pews bacame available and it seemed to me it would be interesting to fashion a harp from the pew wood, retaining as many features of the original pew as possible. The white paint is the same paint from the same maker as was used on the original pew, and the clear finished wood is mahogany, just like it was as a pew. The embattlement on the column, while curved, has been molded to match the straight, mahogany moldings that capped the white pew ends. There are two of these harps and, because I chose to carve the logo of Presbyterian Churches USA in the column, I am forbidden to ever sell these harps. In the base is a drawer that opens to house the tuning wrench.

Yet another of my very early lap harps. This predates any that I built with screw-on stands. It is walnut with a birch ply soundboard. Probably 25strings.

A friend asked me to assemble a Musicmakers’ Renaissance Guitar kit for her so she could take classical guitar lessons with it. Back when instrument woods were more available, I had purchased a couple of guitar soundboard/back sets, one set of which was koa wood. Having assembled my friend’s guitar, I decided to use my koa to make myself a guitar as well. It turned out well, but I’ve never liked the feel of frets, so I sold it. This is the lady who purchased it, Barbara McCourt.

A friend had asked me to make him a stand for his new hammered dulcimer and he thought it might be nice to have it decorated with ivy. I was unable to give myself the necessary time to work on it, and have abandoned the project. The carvings turned out rather nicely and, who knows, perhaps one day I’ll resume working on it….

This is another harp that I built for Tom Herald, and which I affectionately named, “Harp the Herald”. Tom asked if I might build him a small harp that would be portable that would have Queen Anne legs and I thought it seemed like a nice challenge. It turned out rather well visually, but the smaller soundboard does not have the resonance of some of my later harps. This harp is made of birdseye maple and has a drawer in the base for the tuning wrench.

This is a photo of the first Hammered Dulcimer that I built. It was built from Musicmakers’ plans and presented some soundboard problems. If I’m not mistaken, this dulcimer has had THREE soundboards; the last soundboard, made of fiberglass/epoxy reinforced redwood, seems to be holding up well. It is a 15/16 instrument. Note the clumsy stand I creatively designed. It was so clumsy that I GAVE it away to someone who needed a stand.

Here are two more of my lap harps. The first was made for a local harpist, Elizabeth Asmus, who has THREE Lyon and Healy pedal harps. I had bartered some harp lessons in exchange for this harp. The second was made for my harper friend, Gerry Serviente, and was the first of my round-backed lap harps. In using book-matched walnut veneer for the soundboard, there were matching knot holes in the veneer that I chose to make a visual part of the soundboard. By making the knot holes open to the harp interior, it gives the eerie effect of the soundboard having eyes!

Not every project has the glamour of building a harp or other musical instrument. My wife and I had purchased a bench of this exact same design many many years ago which, after so long sitting in the Pennsylvania weather, simply rotted to death. I missed the bench so much that I decided to make reproductions of the old one for us to continue to enjoy. In the process I made not one, but THREE of them. Two adorn our deck, one we gave to our daughter.

Yet another lap harp, this one owned by our friend, Claretta. Next to it is Hammered Dulcimer #2, which I play regularly with Still Simple Gifts. While similar to HD #1, this one has some modifications which Jerry Brown of Musicmakers Kits recommended at the time. I am very pleased with its tone.