[CAUT] harpsichord caster-less solution

Israel Stein custos3 at comcast.net
Sun Nov 21 20:33:05 MST 2010


Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:20:28 -0600 
John Minor <jminor at illinois.edu> wrote;
> Here is a nice solution to our harpsichord moving problems over the
> years. I've installed 3 singe wheel 2" casters by Shepherd, part #9346,
> on the horizontal cross members of the harpsichord stand. This
> particular brand has a small flat base that fits nicely under the lower
> stretcher of the stand. This was quite easy on the Phillips and Martin,
> requiring only thin shims, but the Dowd required the addition of a
> second stretcher to accommodate the caster. The instruments are raised
> less than 1/2" off the floor, so the height does not seem to bother
> anyone. These instruments can now be moved through most
> doorways(carefully), as well as on and offstage, by harpsichordists
> without having to put them on their sides and using a dolly.
John,

That's a pretty good solution - which, 
unfortunately, won't work for those of 
us in buildings with standard classroom 
width doors like here at San Francisco 
State... Neither our Dowd nor our 
Neupert fit through them - wheels or no 
wheels. So Tom Winter - who took care of 
the pianos here for many years before 
retiring to go on to fortepiano building 
- left us this harpsichord mover 
contraption:



So you slide it over and then pull out 
the retainer dowels from both sides and 
tilt it to go out the door like so:



And while it's nice to have two people 
to move a harpsichord with it it, one 
person can do it in a pinch. Of course 
you have to haul the stand separately - 
but that's no trouble, especially when 
there are student assistants available. 
When "off duty", the contraption lives 
in its own bay under one of the 
workbenches in the shop:



It's also very useful for transporting 
actions to and from the shop - along 
with all kinds of tools and supplies 
down in all that space under the 
"tilter" thing. It also serves as a 
portable workbench for action work out 
there in the classrooms, studios and 
rehearsal rooms, when necessary. And 
when we run out of shelf space in the 
shop (like in the summers, when there 
are lots of projects going), we can 
store an action, a keyframe or a set of 
keys on it - because we really don't 
need to move harpsichords all that 
often, especially when classes are out...

Israel Stein


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