Substantially the same, though I would not claim it as mine. The type of construction makes a difference, as many had a short 'flange' glued to the rail, which had to be removed. Supposedly they were to have been glued with thinned glue so that they could be easily popped off after first using heat, but this was not always s success. .Often the flange would break, and a new one would need to be made, which was not too difficult. Anyway, once it and the lever were free they were dipped in boiling water for about half a minute, and then the vellum removed from the sawcut with a thin blade, such as an artists palette knife. Gluing in the new vellum was as you describe, making sure there was no squeeout or the hinge would bind. My first piano was a Southwell sticker action made by Moore and Moore. This had the jacks at the end of the keys, and it was not practical to immerse the key in water to remove the vellum from the key. Instead, it had to be sawn out. This is almost impossible to do freehand, so a guide had to be made, on the principle of a miter box. In 1992 I was in England on an IAPBT tour. We participated in the Piano Tuners Assn, convention, and Ingbert Bluthner Haesler came from Germany to give a class on the Bluthner Patent Action. This has vellum hinges on the damper levers, and there was a question from the floor on how to remove the vellum from the flange end. He suggested heating a thin blade red hot and burning the broken piece out. I know I would not even consider trying it, preferring to pry the flange off the rail, or removing the strip as you describe. I rather think Herr Haesler was winging it. He was a very nice man and had good information on the Bluthner action. Jurgen Goering has asked me to write up how to service these; I have a friend with one and will be going there soon to take pictures and specs first. Regards, Ted Sambell ________________________________ From: Fred Sturm <fssturm at unm.edu> To: caut at ptg.org Sent: Thu, November 18, 2010 7:37:55 PM Subject: [CAUT] vellum hinges (was Re: Baldwin D bridge) On Nov 17, 2010, at 5:04 PM, Edward Sambell wrote: Vellum and parchment are more or less interchangeable terms, vellum being the preferred term for the best quality. 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. Back to this question, Montal had a couple answers from his time. As he describes it, the vellum hinges were glued on one side to a rail, which had a wooden strip screwed over the vellum hinges. So the first step was to unscrew that wooden strip and reveal one half of the broken hinge, and remove it with a chisel or the like. The other end was attached to the moving part. In one case, the hammer of the little square pianos of the time, it would be held between the hammer shank proper (rectangular in cross section, laid long end horizontally) and another piece of wood that was glued so as to pinch the vellum. So you undid the glue joint, preferably using heat, possibly dipping it in boiling water, and scraped or cut away the old material. Then cut a piece of vellum to size (a little long), glue it to the shank and the other piece, and glue the other piece to the shank, wrap with thread and let that set. Then trim away the thread and glue the other end to the rail, trimming the vellum to length as needed, and check to see that the hammer lined up with the string. Adjust as needed. The other kind had the same rail, but the other end of the vellum was inserted and glued into a slot. So the difference was that you sawed the vellum out of the slot, then cut a new piece about an inch wider than needed, so as to be able to pull it into the slot holding it on both sides with your fingers. Glue, and work it in, let set, trim, glue to the rail. So what is the Sambell method? Regards, Fred Sturm fssturm at unm.edu "I am only interested in music that is better than it can be played." Schnabel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20101118/ce49e670/attachment-0001.htm>
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