On Nov 17, 2010, at 5:04 PM, Edward Sambell wrote: > The vellum would last for decades, then suddenly break. How would > one repair this? We did know, but I will let everyone see if they > can propound solutions, then I will tell. The methods are probably > still alive in the museums. And in old repair manuals. I'm not sure what has survived in that way from the second half of the 19th century, but there is an account of vellum replacement in Claude Montal's book from 1836. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I am engaged in translating that book, and the end is very close - five pages left out of 245, for a first draft translation. End of this week probably. Then I'll go through again and do a more refined translation. He has a fairly long chapter on repairs, and a long ending section on the history of the piano. He writes of Sébastian Erard's double escapement as something invented five years ago, that may well prove to be the inventor's masterpiece, if the kinks can be worked out. Also about Pleyel's experiment cross-veneering a spruce soundboard with mahogany veneer, which he finds improves the tone (and another maker gluing panels with two layers of spruce, cross grained). Pape's attempts to make a successful downward striking action. Fine tuning inventions involving a pressure screw. Fascinating stuff - well, for me anyway. I'd like to make this translation available in some way. I'll make some efforts in the way of having it published, whether hard copy or e- book - though I don't really have time to do a lot in that direction - and if nothing else will simply post files somewhere. But meanwhile, if anyone would like files of the draft translation, contact me off list and I'll send them along. I have separate Word files for each chapter or section, and there are 22 in all at 1.2 Mb total. Regards, Fred Sturm fssturm at unm.edu http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/FredSturm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20101117/1e63f94f/attachment-0001.htm>
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