I have no woodworking experience, but I have a friend that does and she has tools! We did it together up to the point where it was time to apply the finish. The YouTube videos by MusicMakers that described building the Jolie harp were invaluable. We watched little sections over and over. The handheld BELT sander that my friend had saved us hours. If I do this again, I will buy one for myself. We also had orbital sanders, a mouse sander, and sanding blocks. Be prepared for MUCH sanding. I'm glad my friend had a workshop where we could do all the woodworking parts of it! One of the pieces (the inner reinforcement bar for the soundboard) was too long. We suspect that it was for a Jolie instead of a Ballad. She had a scroll saw and she shortened it beautifully. I let MM know that we had gotten the wrong piece. For the rest of it, I did it at home myself. I have some experience with strings, installing levers, and regulating other brands. I had purchased a used harp previously that required some maintenance in anticipation of doing this project. The only problem I had withe the kit later was that one of the strings was missing. I contacted MusicMakers and they sent the missing string right away. I thought I might have to "argue" that I really HAD NOT broken it and that it was just missing. I didn't think to take a picture of all the strings laid out prior to putting them on. They commented that it was odd that it was missing, but sent one for free. I was also VERY impressed at how quickly Matt always responded to my questions. I sent him emails about 3 times with questions and he always responded by the next day. The template with the Camac levers didn't really fit under the bridge pins well and I now wish that I had really been cognizant that I should have made some attempt to make sure that I could easily regulate the lever in the positions they were screwed into before drilling the holes, but I was able to adjust everything to get it regulated perfectly anyway. It just took a lot of time. One thing I noticed was that there were 3 different places that told you how high to put the bridge pins and the tuning pins. This should be changed to have it be in one specific place regardless if you are putting on the Camac levers or not because they are not universal across all the string sizes, bridge pin sizes, and lever sizes. Step 66 tells you to put the bridge pins in so that the top is 5/8" above the surface of the wood. Step 67 tells you to put the tuning pins so that the hole is in line with the groove in the bridge pin. This makes sense to me until you install the strings. The reality is that the thicker strings take up more space on the tuning pin than the thinner ones so you need to take that into account so that the strings are pretty straight down from the tuning pin to the groove in the bridge pin after installed. But, wait! There's more! When you get to the instructions for installing the Camac levers, they tell you to adjust the height of the bridge pin AGAIN and they want the height to be such that the center of the string is between the fret post and the grooved stop AND there are 3 sizes of levers. I can guarantee that the height of the bridge pins that you set in step 66 is not what the levers want! The pin was supposed to be 5/8" above the wood, but now the small levers require only a 1/4" gap between the wood and the string which means they are FAR too high. So, I adjusted the bridge pins based on the heights they wanted in step 2 only to later discover when I was actually putting the levers on that the heights they wanted in step 2 were NOT the heights required to have the string midway between the fret post and grooved stop. When I got everything adjusted and regulated, some of my strings are now at a nasty angle from the tuning pin to the bridge pin and I'm a bit concerned that they might slip out of the groove some day. I will be correcting this placement as

I enjoy building these kits and just wanted to comment that I find the Musicmaker staff to be extremely helpful when I have a question and are quick to respond. I greatly appreciate this!

Excellent kit! I really enjoyed building this harp. I was a bit apprehensive prior to purchasing the kit, fearing I would lack the ability or the tools. However, the instructions were very good. I am pleased with the result. Staff were helpful, even sending me a new brass driver when I stripped out the first one. A video would have been helpful to supplement the written instructions.

J’ai fait l’achat d’une harpe qui a été montée avec un kit à construire : modèle harpe Ballad Harp 34 cordes. Celle-ci a été montée par une personne consciencieuse. Elle est tout simplement magnifique, son son est profond, d’une très bonne tonalité. J’adore, je la recommande vivement, un très bon achat.

I settled on about 5 different harps before finding this one by chance. The sound was just what I was looking for, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make my own. The woodworking took me two weekends. The finishing took a while, because I am 1) inexperienced and 2) a super-perfectionist. In the end, it turned out wonderful and sounds fantastic, and I love that I can say that I built it myself. This was the perfect model for me because it had my ideal number of strings, a warm sound, and is compact. Customer service was very kind and helpful. Will definitely make future purchases from MusicMakers.

I had been wanting a harp for about 40 years now. But all full size harps with levers have never been possible because of cost. The building process is tedious and precarious, but worth it, because you will know the instrument every square inch. It will not just be something you bought somewhere, it will be something you built and know.

I have zero experience with harps, but I've wanted one for a while and since we're currently in the great 2020 pandemic, I figured now was the time! The Ballad harp kit comes securely packaged with extremely detailed and easy to follow instructions. The 30-40 hour estimate on build time is accurate, but between my husband and myself we got it done in just under a week. I even added a mahogany finish to darken the color. The instrument itself plays beautifully. Be aware that tuning it does take a while the first couple of times, but once you get it there it's impressively loud and clear. Here's a picture of our finished product: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Gc_oi-Y_z63H2PInKxpBE_UBRJvUhS9I