The Louis XVI stand for my 2024 French Double is a major project taking many steps and hours to achieve the final result. There are many details that I painstakingly add: the legs are tapered and fluted and the stand has many intricate multi-segmented moldings.

Keyboards slowly progress from lumpy raw timber to a finished, balanced and polished keyboard through a number of steps that all take place in my workshop. my shae is a major project taking many steps and hours to achieve the final result. There are many details that I painstakingly add: the legs are tapered and fluted and the stand has many intricate multi-segmented moldings.

Once assembly is complete I primed the stand and legs with hide glue then applied hide glue and chalk gesso before gilding the entire stand

making the keyboards for my 2024 French Double

making jacks and registers

Jack and register making is probably the most demanding and precise part of harpsichord building. The tolerance to all jack components is +0/-0.2mm. My jack tongues are made from stabilised Hornbeam and the bodies are either Australian Blackwood or European Beech.

To achieve this level of repeatability and precision each step involves using a precise set of jigs and fixtures as well as specialised precision machinery capable of working to repeatable accuracy of +/- 0.001 inch.

making and decorating the case of my 2024 double

Working from detailed plans, jigs and templates the case gradually comes together. My joints are mitred and splined which in my opinion gives a stable and strong joint.

Unusually I guess for most builders I like to decorate my instruments myself. My decorative style replicates Flemish and French stlyes, drawing some elements from original instruments and others from my local environment. My 2024 French has native blue banded bees, tomatoes, a lyrebird a rosella and echidna, as well as a number of the native flowers that grow around the bush where I live and work

my decorative stlye

Here's a closer look at my decorative work

some of my finished instruments