Not many, if any, makers mould plastic jacks in their workshop. So these would be commissioned from a plastics engineering firm. Maybe Kimball and Clayton used the same maker, maybe Kimball commissioned from Clayton, and so on for lots of other possibilities. Similar jacks do not necessarily point to the provenance of the instrument.
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Now, about stringing. As requested before please measure the scale of the instrument, The scale is the length of the shorter 8 foot C above middle C. I will guess it is 15-17 inches.
That way we can tell whether you need modern wire or historical, though it’s pretty obvious this is going to use modern high tensile wire. If that’s the case then Roslau is a wire you cannot go wrong with. It’s available from all piano supply houses and some harpsichord supply houses.
https://www.vogel-scheer.de/en/strings/4-3-roeslau-strings/
As for brass, Marc Vogel has brass including red brass but you can also get very good brass wire for harpsichords from Little Falls in America.
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Dear Andrew
Just a gentle correction and expansion: The scaling is the speaking length (nut pin to bridge pin) of the longest 8´ string. Everything else being equal, this string is under slightly higher tension than the short 8´, so is more useful when determining the best stringing material.
If the speaking length of c’’ is greater than 35cm on an A440 instrument—or 37cm at A415—steel is the only possible stringing material to use: The historic-style softer iron wires will break. I would expect almost all revival-style instruments to be steel strung because generally their trebles are too long—along with their basses too short.
Little Falls are the manufacturers of the common copper alloy wires (phosphor bronze, red & yellow brass…) which over the years have been sold in the US by Hubbard, the Instrument Workshop and Zuckermann. Of those three, only Zuckermann remains in business. Little Falls has a minimum order quantity of 25lbs of each size, so don’t bother contacting them!
Regards
Carey
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Of course, My brain said longer and my hand typed shorter! No rational explanation 
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Yes, I was imagining a sustain pedal; if so, it seems it does not affect
the four-foot, as the four-foot jacks appear to have their own dampers.
But maybe there was another reason.
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If you are restringing with steel wire, Mapes sells a steel “dulcimer wire” which is quite inexpensive and arrives quickly after ordering. Are those the original tuning pins? They seem unnecessarily tall.
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I will take a look at that dulcimer wire. Since I pretty certain it is a revival harpsichord will probably go with steel. My first attempt to restring if a few years ago was an utter failure. Mainly dude to my lack of knowledge. I thought all string wire was the same but the wire I went with originally seems to break easily when tuned. I finally have time to work on the instrument again and this time I want to do it right.
Yes, the pins are original and so are all the jacks. There are warped or missing jacks. The nice thing is that since they’re delrin jacks, even if I were to break or lose one, I could 3D print one with delrin filament.
Thanks for the info!
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Thanks to all that have responded! One question regarding the string thickness….
Without a stringing schedule, what’s the best way to arrive at the correct wire thickness given the fact that the current strings are NOT the original ones and I had no clue what I was doing at the time? So measuring existing strings thickness is out of the question.
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The FIRST step in any restringing is to measure the speaking lengths. It’s not a mystery. Guesswork is not required. Measure the strings and everything else can be designed around that. Long 8 and 4, preferably all notes.
I’ve seen very early instruments that could be strung in historical wire for the most part, with just a light sprinkling of steel in the treble.
Stephen
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As promised here is another photo. Since the harpsichord
is about 8’ long, I had to use a ladder to fit it all in.
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Wow! 16’, 2x8’ and 4’, yes?
I will suggest an approach, with apologies to anyone who has other opinions.
-Select one 8’ register and repair, regulate, voice and refine it until it is as smooth, even, responsive and dependable as possible.
-Working to optimize that one register will tell you how to proceed on the instrument.
-If, for example, it requires an heroic effort to regulate one 8’ register, and it needs touch-ups after a few hours playing, what do you think it will be like if you have two 8’ registers? Or three or four registers?
-I have learned, at considerable cost of shop hours, that ease and dependability of regulation are major requirements for a successful instrument. There may be considerable value in reducing the instrument to a registration that could be maintained.
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It is indeed a 16’, 2x8’ and a 4’. As one person put it “it seems to be a rare beast”. And a beast it is indeed. I do like the approach of starting with a single 8’ and see how that goes. If all goes well, go on from there.
As I said before I am primarily a pianist with a long love affair with the harpsichord. I do my own piano regulation though the harpsichord would be a completely new learning experience. I’ve bought some books and with the help of the community I am sure I can get the instrument playable again. I live in a very small town (750 people) and there isn’t a piano technician around for hours, let alone a harpsichord technician. But I am up for the challenge.
Hello @fortepianos having obtained a complete list of the string lengths, perhaps you could offer the OP guidance on how to then compute suitable gauges. Not obvious to most people I suspect.
@jsalzer1979 would you post the scale (just the one figure as mentioned above) for us? It’s fairly obvious it is long, but it would be helpful to know in order to help.
@jsalzer1979 if you are going to restore this you may want to remove all the red felts under the hitchpin loops. They do nothing and were not used historically. Personally I don’t think you have to preserve every detail of an instrument like this. Besides, from a curatorial point of view, this is a fully reversible change.
I removed them to clean them, haven’t put them back on. I do have them all, I also have all the 16’ jacks
Thanks for the photo. Some observations about the instrument:
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It appears currently to be strung entirely in brass. What is the present pitch (frequency of A above middle C)? And What is the speaking length of the string in mm – between the pins on the nut and the bridge?
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I presume the double pinning all the way up the 8ft bridge is because of the enormous load on the soundboard.
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It is a good suggestion of Ed’s to just string the longer 8ft course. Removing all the other strings will probably make the instrument sound more open.
David
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I think ED just meant to setup and regulate one eight first, didn’t he?
Scale of C is more useful for handy comparison and type of wire etc.
My experience has been that you don’t really know the capacities of an instrument until it is in condition to be played expressively. Starting out by getting two ranks to play “pretty good” doesn’t tell much. One well-regulated 8’ rank, played with real musical intent will say a lot more about the musical capacities of the instrument. The musical desires of the player will have much to say in this. Stringing the 16’ with wrapped strings, for example, will be very costly. Will there be any use for it?
I say all this as one who has spent a lot of time chasing instruments up blind alleys and has come to find great pleasures in simple 8’ instruments.
@EdS then you are suggesting stripping the instrument back to one eight?
Then I can’t see the point of having a big revival instrument for one non-historical eight foot. One would be better off tonally and musically with a spinet. I am sure the OP wants to bring this back to its original state, pedals and all.