more harp stuff.

Here when I put the strings on....I put a little loop in the first and then wind 'em up. The advantage is that there's more sting incase of a break or something......also so the end string is facing the harp neck instead of sticking out. It winds up tight and even and does not slip while winding up. Here's all the strings wound up without the ends cut off yet.
I'm putting on the decorations with super glue as you can see what I use for "weight"...a brick and clamps. I could use some deeper clamps someday. I varnished these seperate so I could get a smooth finish to the body of the harp.
There are some more styles I'm going to try for the next harp. you can see I'm learning how to do inlay work....I love learning new things like this. Thanks Jerry Brown for such wonderful kits all these years. This is harp #42.
just showing another picture.

making a harp

here I clamp the inside parts together.... When putting the strings on the finished harp...I did 6 varnishes on this harp first.....I lay the harp on a table and put in all of the strings.
I keep the harp on the table and set her up like this and start from the bottom of the harp and work myself up to the littlest string.
It occured to me that I needed to use my long arm wrench for twisting it round and round and used this one. saves on too much turning on the hands and give the power to "leverage".
I had saved some zebra wood for 20 years. ah, made a new "user friendly" harp wrench that does not hurt the hand to tighten up the strings.

Luau for 140 Temple Missionaries

We had the opportunity to make a big Luau for those that we serve in the Nauvoo Temple with. About 140 folks came. We had so much fun....One Hawaiian guy here with his wife....he was part of our entertainment that we did also. We did on 25 August 2008. About 4 p.m. the huge truck came with my round house kit roof and skylight......ONE BUSY DAY! Anyway, I had the truck follow me to where I have these being stored on the same road that we'll be building our house on, Sycamore Haven Road. I watched them unload 2 round skylights...and the lumber. You see, one kit was going to Vermont after the delivery of my kit. Zooming back to this Luau in time to help cut up the perfect hot food and everyone enjoyed it all. I had another good friend come and set up the sound system and he played guitar.....we all had soooooooo much fun. I even had the ladies stand up where they were eating and do the Hukulau hula.



I love this picture of Tomasi making the Luau and heating up the rocks. The smoke through the trees making "smoke beams". 4 huge turkeys, 2 huge hams, 53# of big yellow sweet potatoes. the rest of the food was assigned salads and fruits.