hey…been building harps for a couple years now…i’ve made three, the most recent one from scratch for a talented friend’s birthday.
just wanted to share these…
this was the first one I built from a kit for myself. cherry sides, 29 string G-g full loveland levers. Unfortunately, the optional long legs don’t fit in the case, so i adapted the original feet to be interchangeable with it, and have a collapsing box i keep in the case to raise the harp to chair playing level.
my church organist, after seeing my harp, wanted one of his own. his model is the same as mine in all respects (without the foot modification) except that he wanted me to design a lily motif for the soundboard instead of the Celtic knotwork I did for my own.
Evie loved this lap harp, it was not a kit, but built from one single 1x10 piece of red oak. The soundboard I built from MusicMakers’ it is 26 string with full levers. This was a little tricky for a few reasons, not the least of which that I had to figure out how to get the levers from Mid-East to work right. (for those harpists out there…they CAN be made to function perfectly in tune…you just have to show 'em who’s boss…) I used what I learned painting to put knotwork on the soundboard (based on mine) and (her favorite) sunflowers inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers
Very impressive looking. the one you made for yourself i have to say looks the best I want one… ha. two quetions, what do you mean built from a kit? how much does it cost to go about making one from a kit?
Studio harp predrilled, precut kit
29 loveland levers (@$10.80 ea)
wound bass string upgrade
gig bag
long legs kit
instrument varnish
$1200
(at the time i calculated the kit for the second harp, same as the first)
the kit for the limerick lap harp with all the trimmings would have been $1150, but by making it myself and using Mid-East for the levers I was able to do it for under $300. the lap harp is 36" tall and at some point in the future I want to make one (scratch again) for myself, and then tackle the 36 string Gothic model (also scratch) as soon as I can figure out how to cut such long pieces on my small table saw…
Nice job! I like the decorations on the first one. Did you use a stencil, or freehand the knotwork design?
We have three harps built from Musicmakers plans (not their kits). The kits are great, but if you go with building from the plans, they are well done also. My husband is a carpenter, so the kit thing was not challenging enough for him
the studio harps were kits, I don’t have a table saw large enuff to cut the sides for anything larger than the limerick.
the last one (limerick) was just from the plans.
how do i do the knots…
i do my own design (viz. Ian Bain’s “Celtic Knotwork”), blow it up on a zerox, cut slits along the lines, use as a pencil stencil, flip, do the other side, then just paint over the pencil lines.
for flowers i do basically the same thing but just with the outline…i do the insides by eye…
Nice harp! I had looked at that site when I was diciding what harp to build.We ended up going with the Irish Harp.
Have you herd of it ? My dad and I got plans from Robinsons Harp shop It was a big project but we finally got mine finished on tuesday. I’ll see if I can get a picture around.
So how did you get the sharping levers from the Mid-East harps to work?
My 29 string harp has a full set of sharping levers, but I’ve found them useless because of how tight they are and how out of tune they are. Any tips on getting them to work would be greatly appreciated.
Btw, you’ve done some very beautiful work! (Any mp3s of your harps?)
