And then I built a harp...

Yesterday I spent the entire day reading while sitting by my front door glaring suspiciously at the road any time a UPS-like truck sounded like it was trundling down the road. I wasn't exactly sure that the UPS truck was going to get to the house at all, yesterday because of the rain, but arrive it did with a very large box with my name on it.

Despite my initial excitement, I very quickly realized that I still didn't know how I wanted to go about decorating my harp. I'd specifically looked for a harp kit so that I could personalize my harp before I started playing it, and since the harp kit that I chose had a cardboard soundbox (which made the kit substantially less expensive), decorating the harp wasn't so much an option as it was the difference between having a decent looking instrument and feeling like a toddler with a shoe box and some rubber bands. Originally I was going to paint some really intricate Celtic leaves and vines on the side, but I realized that most harps have Celtic leaves and knots along the side of the soundboard--which was fine for other harps, but this is my harp, and I wanted it to be special.

Having nixed the Celtic vines and/or knots idea, I came to the conclusion that I had NO IDEA what to paint. I did know that I wanted green paint, which I didn't have, so I dragged my sister and our friend out into the rain, to Michael's Arts and Crafts, to stare at a big shelf of paints where I worried for twenty minutes over what colour green I liked best. Except that all of the greens that they had either looked like it belonged on an army uniform, in a jar of Gerber's baby food, or, well, in the toilet. So green didn't happen. Instead, my friend found a great "berry wine" red, so I grabbed a couple of tubes of that and we headed back home.

Halfway into The Hobbit, I had the outside of my soundbox painted. I think that eventually I'll design a sort of floral stencil and paint that in white on the side. Maybe. Right now I'm pretty fond of it as it stands.

I let the box dry overnight, and today I finished constructing the rest of the harp. Originally, I was going to stain the wood, but it was quite a few shades darker than I thought it would be, and frankly, I was way too excited about putting it together to take the time to stain the wood properly, so I decided to skip that step. I did take a few minutes to burn a bardic symbol on the head of the harp. Then I use some of the lacquer that was left over from when my dad made the mantle over the fireplace. It was just my luck that the lacquer actually darkened the wood a fair bit, so it ended up exactly the colour I wanted as well as giving the wood a nice glossy look.

While the lacquer dried, my dad and I folded and glued the cardboard soundboard together, and once that dried I was able to go over it with another coat of paint. I realized this morning when handling the soundbox that because the instructions said to use a water-based paint, there was no way that the paint would survive if water got on it, and when the paint dried it was kind of chalky and dull. I ended up painting the soundbox with lacquer as well just to protect the paint.

Once everything was dry, it was time to put together the three-piece wooden frame, add the bridge pins and tuning pins, and then glue the frame to the soundbox (the majority of which my dad did, because he's the one with the power tools).

I am now in the process of waiting for the box and frame to dry, and tomorrow I'll be able to string the harp and start the VERY scary process of tuning this bad boy (oh gosh x_X).

I do have pictures below, and when I string it, I'll take another picture and put it up. :)