I can make or supply tuning pins for traditional wire-strung Irish harps.
I have two different types available. The more modern design is made from steel, to suit the John Egan style wire-strung harps. The earlier design is made from brass, to suit 18th century to medieval historical reproductions.
Steel pins for Egan style wire-strung harps
These pins are produced in a set of 37 to suit the harps designed by John Egan in the 1820s (as detailed in my free harpmakers’ construction drawings). Each set contains four different sizes of pin, increasing from the thinnest and shortest in the treble to the thickest and longest in the bass. All the drive heads in a set are the same size,so one tuning key fits all the heads in one set. The drive heads are large and tapered in the traditional way, to allow for a tight fit with the tuning key and fine control of the tuning.
You can download a a PDF data sheet and technical drawings of these pins. These pins are machined from 303 stainless steel, in four different sizes. I have these in stock ready to send to you; a set of 37 costs £370.
These pins are best used with a 5.75mm or 6mm tuning key. The four sizes of pins require the four sizes of taper reamer (see below).
18th century and earlier style brass pins
Tuning pins for 18th century and older wire-strung Irish harps are usually made from brass, and the large square drive heads have incised decoration which gives a very distinctive and special look to these harps.
I have been making this style of brass pins for many years. I source machined blanks, which are then hand-finished and hand-decorated to make the completed pins.
My standard handmade brass tuning pins have decorated heads with incised lines, copying the historic originals. They have #4 Imperial 1:48 taper shafts, the same as standard modern harp tuning pins. This means they can be fitted using a standard ¼″ reamer, or can be swapped out to replace modern steel pins.
These handmade brass pins are now (Autumn 2026) available again. The price is £12 each.
Fitting the pins into the harp
Taper harp tuning pins are fitted into the neck of the harp using a tapered reamer that matches the tapered shaft of the tuning pins. I can supply reamers suitable for fitting different sizes of tuning pins. I have four sizes of Imperial 1:48 taper reamer here in stock:
| size | Standard pin number | dia of large end (mm) | length of cutting edges (mm) | dia of small end (mm) | price |
| ¼″ | #4 | 6.3 | 80 | 4.7 | £25 |
| ⁹⁄₃₂″ | #5 | 7.1 | 105 | 5.3 | £50 |
| ⁵⁄₁₆″ | 7.9 | 105 | 5.8 | £25 | |
| ¹¹⁄₃₂″ | #6 | 8.7 | 114 | 6.5 | £50 |
If you don’t want to buy one, you can borrow one from me, for £5 plus a returnable deposit.
Examples of my previous work
I have made sets of pins for amateur harpmakers as well as for professional instrument-makers, to be fitted to new harps. I have also made replacement sets of pins for retro-fitting older harps that were originally fitted with modern steel pins. Some of my sets of pins are generic old Irish harp pins; others are carefully sized and modelled after individual historic pins. (In the photographs below, I did not make the harps! I only made the pins for these harps)
Why not just use cheap machine-made pins?
Taper harp tuning pins on classical pedal and lever harps have a parallel-sided small square drive machined down into the shaft. These small parallel drives are fine for gut strings or nylon strings which are pretty stretchy and take a lot of winding for fine tuning. But monofilament wire strings used on traditional wire-strung Irish harps are much more sensitive and require very fine control of the tuning pin and key. The traditional Irish harp tuning pins for wire-strung harps have much wider square drives which taper slightly. This wider, tapered drive head allows a much more precise fit of the tuning key or tuning hammer onto the pin, and makes fine tuning of the sensitive wire strings much easier.
I became frustrated by how even good harpmakers, producing good traditional Irish wire-strung harps copied from the historical originals, were fitting cheap standard classical pedal harp / lever harp pins to them. So I started making the traditional style pins, at first to fit or retro-fit to my own harps, and subsequently to supply them to makers and other players.
How to order:
Send an email to shop@simonchadwick.net, or phone or text me, telling me what you would like.
Please note: postage is charged extra. Click here for payment information.
If you are not sure what you need, still get in touch and ask me. There is no commitment to place an order; just call or email and see if the price and description is really what you are after. I am happy to recommend other sellers who might have what you need.