Finishing the keyboard

Since the keyboard and case are not brought together until a late stage in the construction of the virginal, I started finishing the keyboard before the case was strung and the left bridge was pinned. The key levers are made of basswood (also known as lime - this comes from linden trees, and has nothing to do with the citrus fruit) for its strength, lightness, and ease of working. However, for a durable key surface with good feel, a veneer must be applied to the upper surfaces of the natural keys where they will be touched by the players' fingers. The most common wood veneer for this purpose is probably boxwood, a slow-growing wood that is actually denser than water.

Key levers after and before sanding

The veneers had been glued to the levers an unknown number of years ago using contact cement (which is the adhesive recommended in the ©1975 manual), but the bond had failed and some of the boxwood slips detached from the levers with just a light touch. I removed them all and sanded all of the dried contact cement from both the key levers and the boxwood. Sanding the 1/16" thick veneer was a challenge. Infamous mobster John Dillinger had his fingerprints burned off with acid in a futile attempt to avoid detection; I think my method may actually be more thorough.

Once the levers and veneer slips were completely free of the old adhesive, they could be glued back together. I chose to use normal yellow wood glue (Titebond) instead of contact cement for a couple of reasons; first, I did not want the adhesive to fail again in a few years, and second, the glue takes a minute or two to begin to set, leaving time to rearrange the veneer if it doesn't go on the lever exactly straight.

The veneers are in two pieces - a wide one for the head of each key, and a narrow one for the tail. The heads and tails were not cut from the same pieces of veneer, so I made no attempt to match the grain. I did save the most interesting head pieces for the "C" keys, though.

Veneers for Key Heads and Tails

After the veneers had been glued to the levers, they had to be sanded down so that the head slips were flush with the sides of the levers. For the tail pieces, this would not have been a good idea since the tails of the levers are not even close to being square.

Tails of key levers are not square.

At this point, the arcade mouldings are attached to the front of the key levers, where the boxwood slips overhang the levers. The arcades supplied with the kit are fairly pedestrian compared to some that are available.

Once the arcades are on, the natural keys are put back on the keyboard frame and a small sanding block is used to file all the boxwood slips down so that they are all the same length.

Now the boxwood head slips have to be shaped in the traditional Italian style. First, two thin, shallow lines are scored right across the keys, one where the head and tail pieces meet, and one 1/8" closer to the front of the keyboard (the "proximal end" - impress your guests at your next cocktail party). A straightedge clamped down to the keyboard (after removing the sharps) to provide a cutting guide, and the manual recommends using an X-acto knife with the blade broken off about halfway down to make the cut. I found it difficult to control the super-sharp blade of the X-acto knife, and will try another alternative next time. This was the most nerve-wracking part of the construction process so far; if the blade goes astray (and believe me, it really wants to) and makes a cut in the wrong place, you have to throw away the boxwood slip and start over with another one. I was only able to avoid disaster by taking it slowly and doing one key at a time; even so, I spread this task out over a couple of days.

With the score lines in place, a small notch is cut into each edge of each key (but not the outside edges of the top and bottom keys!) to serve as a stop for rounding the edges. The edges of the keys in an Italian style keyboard are rounded from the proximal end up to the first score line, then kept perfectly square for the rest of the key. This improves the feel of the keyboard in a way that I can't describe, but somehow makes playing the instrument feel easier and more natural, in addition to giving the keyboard an attractive and finished look. I started shaping with a metal file and finished up with some fine sandpaper. You keep your thumbnail in the notch you made earlier to keep the file from touching the part that is supposed to be kept square. There wasn't much left of my thumbnail after this job was completed, but at least the keyboard looks good. Here is a sequence of photos illustrating the process:

Once all the keys had been through this process, I started smoothing the tops of the veneers with several grades of fine sandpaper, starting with 400 grit and progressing through 800, 1000, and finally 2000 grit. These superfine grits can be purchased from auto parts stores; hardware stores almost never carry anything beyond 400 or sometimes 600 grit. The dense boxwood takes on an almost glassy surface after sanding with the 2000 grit.

After the keys had been shaped, I applied two thin coats of tung oil finish to the boxwood veneer, which penetrates the wood and protects it from absorbing oils from the fingers.