Remark.—The store of brass wire should be kept wrapped up in brown paper. This applies also to brass plate.
Whatever the wire, the springs may be quickly fashioned by using a board, Fig. 15, in which you have fixed a stout wooden peg, x, and two pins, y and z. The wire, if brass, should be about No. 17 or No. 18 of the gauge. The formation of the spring, by twisting the wire round x, y, and z, is too obvious to require further remark. The arms of the spring maybe about 5 inches in length, and they are curved outwards (see Fig. 16) by drawing them between the thumb and fingers. When so curved, and left uncompressed, the gape or distance between the extremities will be 7 or 8 inches.
Fig. 15.
Fig. 16.
Remark.—The strength of the springs must be regulated by your plans in other respects. We ourselves like strong springs, even if the manual touch be in consequence a little heavy.
8. The two extremities of each spring are bent at a right angle or nearly. One of these will be inserted, but quite loosely, in a small hole or punch-mark near the middle of the back of the pallet; the other, also quite loosely, in a similar hole or depression in a wooden bar extending the whole length of the wind-chest, and screwed down within two notches made for it in the inside of the cheeks. As the united pressure of the 54 springs will certainly bend this bar, it is well to introduce a long screw at about its middle point, passing through it, and biting well in one of the sounding-bars. The spring-bar has a slip of wood, cedar or mahogany, about 2 inches wide, glued or bradded to it along the side which is to be nearest to the back of the chest. The springs will be held parallel to their pallets by playing loosely in cuts, about ⅛ inch wide, made in this slip of wood (Fig. 17).
Fig. 17.