Refurbishing my old autoharp Part 4 Fine (pronounced "fee-nay" in musical language) which means FINISH or THE END

There all the chord bars are in place.

Now I want to show you why I cannot use my old chord bar cover

See the cracks and broken places...old and brittle

Nice new padded replacement

Now then I started to place the chord cover onto the chord bars and discovered something I neglected to do.  I hadn't marked the exact place on the bars that the buttons should have been sitting in relation to the configuration on the chord bar cover( The buttons are loose and come out of the chord bars when not constrained by the cover).  So it took some wiggling and maneuvering several times to get everything lined up correctly.  Now once that was done it was time to screw the chord bar cover in place.  

I discovered something else.  The new brackets which were fastened under the plastic combes were not going to work.  The new screws just slid through the holes instead of grabbing.  And the brackets were not tall enough and angled in such a way as to allow the cover to sit all the way down to the instrument top as it should.  Sooo now my husband helped me take things back apart to install the old brackets and then use the old screws to fasten every thing properly in place.

So I had to remove all the chord bars

  Removed the new brackets and re-installed the old ones

Some of the irritating new ones

Checked to be sure the holes will line up and the cover will sit all the way down next to the instrument top.  It appears it will work.

Yes!! Praise the Lord!  I am finished!  Thanks to my husband for his help and encouragement when in disappointment I feared we wouldn't be able to finish without contacting the supplier.

With the new felt in place the Autoharp truly does play more easily.  

I found my old receipts recently for the Autoharp purchased October 30, 1978 for $86.30 and the case later March 6, 1979 for $15.34 for a total of 101.64.

I checked Oscar Schmidt website to see what a similar one would cost today.  $479.90. http://www.oscarschmidt.com/products/autoharps/os21c.asp

 I spent $87.78 for the parts to refurbish my old one.  Even if a few of the parts didn't work, I still was able to complete the job.  

This is what I have left of the pieces and parts.  10 feet of felt for future use as needed.  Dyo spot remover I purchased seperately.  I purchased this at a shoe repair shop.  I worked in shoe sales and shoe repair for 13 years so I was aware this product would be good for removing the residue of adhesive.  And the screws and brackets that didn't fit.  I am not unhappy with the supplier.  Autoharpworks.com has most everything you need.  I think there are many brands of autoharps out there and it may be difficult to be sure you have the right pieces.  These folks were very responsive to my initial order.  I had ordered springs seperately and they wrote me right away and said springs were automatically included when you buy the plastic combs so they had cancelled that part of the order and reduced the cost total.  Since my brackets and screws were still in good shape it didn't seem necessary to contact them about this matter.