analogconvert13

By analogconvert13

Curved. Leitz Summicron 50mm DR

I opened a cardboard box labelled "Harpsichord Samples" today.  Inside, I found a treasure trove of, well, samples, of various bits and pieces that went into the making of a harpsichord: moldings, key arcades, bridge and nut samples, and jigs for setting the taper on sharp key blocks, etc.  And there was this artifact: a little jig I made for marking out the square buns on the legs of a German instrument.  Once the lines were penciled onto the square leg blank, it would be roughly cut on the bandsaw, and then the curves refined with a skinny belt sander and an oscillating spindle sander for the concaves.  Now that the days of machinery - with their attendant noise and dust production - are in the past, I would do this work by hand, the old-fashioned way, with rasps, spokeshave and scrapers, and it would take an enormous amount of time, and that’s just fine.

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