To start, i glued two pieces of board together, which would become the new bottom of the instrument. This is done to increase durability and strength, as the wood of the autoharp is quite weak. This new bottom would create a great anchor for the rest of the project to sit on.The front had these pegs for strings, but they where not needed anymore and were too big. I didn’t have the equipment to remove them, and removing that piece of wood wouldn’t be good as its an important structure. so I drilled holes into the front plate which allowed it to sit flush.The front plate was attached like this, with screws on the bottom and side.This is the slider board (it looks a lot better now) and was made by drilling holes and jigsawing lines into them, making these cuts. Unfortunately, the jigsaw kept moving off the rail, leading to inaccurate cuts, but luckily it works just fine still.This angled plate is made for the motors to sit on, which allows them to hit the motors easily. The board behind it is to make room for the electronics and to merge the front plate, autoharp and the bridge underneath (which was made afterwards).I did an experiment to see if zip ties would work to attach the motors, and they did very well. here I used normal zip ties (as they’re much easier to find) but for the final instrument, I used reusable zip ties.Here is the slider board again, but with experimenting with sliders. After a while, I settled on the slider below for the final slider. The main issue I had was to make a slider that didn’t rotate, wasn’t too loose or tight and actually slid on the string.To summarise, on top is a cable tie mount with two screws through it. Underneath the cable tie mount are nuts, which stop the screws from moving and let the whole slider move easier through the slots. underneath that is a washer and nut, which clamps the slider down (a small piece of MDF was added to join these two parts like a big washer). Finally, the copper pipe is put in between the two screws and tied with fish wire to stay in place but not be too rigid (even though it’s not shown in this photo).Here you can see the failed bridge and felt feet I added to it. The feet helped with the unevenness of the instrument (as the bottom wood was uneven) and made it easer to move. Also, the failed bridge failed because it was too far away and had to be stretched to reach the location, I thought it was a good idea at the time but it completely failed. Below you can see the final bridge which works much better.Here you can see the bridge I made, which was later remade as this one broke. This works similarly to a guitar bridge but is made of wood instead of metal. Along with this, you can see the faceplate has changed, instead of being a big board, it’s been hollowed out to allow thinner wood to sit there. this was done because the electronics I have are not long enough to fit through the board by itself. This solution worked quite well but could have been made of stronger wood.Here you can see the faceplate better, and some of the components. On the top left is the power switch and below that is the battery compartment. I later changed the battery type and had to move the battery compartment to the bottom of the instrument. On the right, you see the motor controllers and switches.Here are the final electronics which are also soldered.Here is the finished front plate (I later opened holes up to allow an easier disassembly).And here is the final instrument!
Other notes
I had to cut the left raised part of the autoharp as it was interfering with the motors
I also had to cut the slider board as it was interfering with the motors and added a piece of wood which spans the whole sideboard instead.
