1930's WURLITZER

[William Bailer]

On Thu, 1 Aug 1996 Wimblees@aol.com wrote:

> Cliff:
>
> I have a small Wurlitzer grand that has pins set directly in the plate, No
> pin block. All the pins are force driven into the iron plate webbing ...
....

> Willem Blees RPT

I have seen a Wurlitzer upright with pins set directly into the plate.
The area behind the pins was open, and the ends of the pins visible.  They
had slots cut in them across the diameter to a depth that was into the
hole, but not visible from the front.  Each slot had a metal wedge driven
into it, spreading the pin tightly in the hole.  To tighten a pin, one
could either drive the whole pin forward ("outward"), or drive just the
wedge (just a very little bit in either case).  I prefer to drive the
whole pin for fear of splitting the pin if the wedge is driven.  In
restringing, I would not even consider replacing the pins.

I agree, it is a nice design, but the Wegman method is even more elegant
and much cheaper!  Wegmans were made in Auburn NY, very near here
(Rochester), so we see a few in this area.  The Wurlitzer may have been a
very short production experiment, I don't know, but it certainly does work
well.

Bill Bailer

   .-----------------------------------------------------------------.
   |  William Bailer  ("Bill")                                       |
   |    wbailer@concentric.net (same mailbox as wbailer@cris.com)    |
   |    Rochester, NY, USA                    phone: 716-473-9556    |
   |  Some interests: acoustics, JS Bach, anthropology, & education. |
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