Hi All, What is Recentring? Ron Poire ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Delacour" <JD at Pianomaker.co.uk> To: "College and University Technicians" <caut at ptg.org> Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2007 2:40 PM Subject: Re: [CAUT] center pinning changes > At 12:39 -0400 8/9/07, Ted Sambell wrote: > >>...one continually runs into pianos one hundred years old in which >>the centers are still perfect. They used no lubricants, but >>evidently took the time to do things properly. > > Quite so -- or almost. I have just been recentring the hammers of a > Kirkman upright from about 1870 which has had by no means a charmed > life and which most people would have taken to the dump. The pins > were original at 1.18 mm and not one of them was either loose or > unacceptably stiff. I recentred throughout with 1.20 mm German > silver centre wire. Today I have inspected the centres of an 1895 > piano with an Isermann action. Since this piano has had very light > use and is virtually as good as new, I shall probably not even > re-centre but use Protek, since most of the centres here are also > perfect. It is a real pleasure to work on old actions from the great > makers. > >>Renner do wonderful work, so it is mystifying why they should have >>this problem. > > I also have recently acquired a 1905 Lipp with a Renner action > (rather unusually, since at the time they generally used Keller. I > very rarely find a Renner action in an old piano and there is nothing > very special about it, and certainly not the centres. If they did > such wonderful work then, it's surprising so few makers recognised > it! I don't regard their work now as wonderful either. The really > great German and French action makers are long gone, together with > dozens of mediocre makers. > >>I just use a little teflon powder on my fingers when handling >>centerpins. In the old days we were taught to run the pins through >>our hair before inserting them. Of course, back then people washed >>their hair once a week. so it was a good source of lanolin. I think >>graphite is unnecessary, and messy stuff anyway. > > I have better things to do than wash my hair every day and never do > centring jobs until about 3 or 4 days after washing it, since this is > the very best way to get just the right amount of lubrication on the > pin and ease the passage of the pin through the wood, without which > either it will creak and seize or require so much pressure as to risk > bending the pin, and it is remarkable how many bent pins one > discovers when decentring original work. If a centring job simply > must be done when my hair is newly washed, then I wipe the pins on a > rag steeped in tallow. > > JD > > > > >
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