2026-07-17

Last modified: 2026-07-17 11:29:48

Keyboard Glockenspiel

I put all the keys in place yesterday just to have a look at it:

I am struggling to work out how to make the tone bar holders. I only have 2mm clearance between the upper surface of the frame and the lower surface of the tone bar, and the hole in the tone bar is offset from the hole in the frame.

I'm thinking I'm going to ditch the dampers for now, because the tone bars (probably?) don't ring for very long anyway, and it's just more unnecessary complexity. And I'd have to put something soft on the damper to stop it buzzing as it comes into contact with the bar.

So tasks remaining are:

• fix the top frame surface down
• make tone bar holders
• make the rest of the hammers
• weight the keys
• glue the black keytops on
• straighten out a couple of the pins that are causing the keys to bind, or else fix whatever is the problem
• woodfill the screw head holes?
• paint/varnish it (including painting the tone bars?)

And I think that's all?

Update: Oh no! I think I've made a grave error. I printed some PLA tone bar holders but I think the top surface of the frame has the holes in the wrong places. With the tone bar holders holding the highest note, they fit perfectly. But the lowest note doesn't fit at all, it fits when it is in the holes just up by 1 note. Did I make an off-by-1 error in working out the spacing for the holes on this frame piece? How can this have happened?

Maybe I just need to remake this top piece and then I can make the tone bar holders go all the way through instead of needing an offset?

It looks fine in CAD.

Maybe I modelled the tone bars wrong in CAD?

My F4 bar is modelled at 172.4mm long, which I think is correct. So what's the problem here?

Did I drill the holes in the wrong places?? That would be very sad. The F4 key holes in real life are just a bit under 95mm apart. They should theoretically be just a bit over 95mm apart, so that is close enough that it should work. What is wrong here?

Update: Easy solution: I can just make different-sized tone bar holders as required, no big deal. Phew!