Bridge repair

[Richard Moody]

Hi Joe
	I just did that to a bass bridge in a piano I own.  Meissner  52"
upright. This is because there was so much negative bearing, the bridge
cap (in sections) was pulled off (after being glued down with CA).   Don't
ask why I did not determine bearing before I did ANY bridge repair. (So I
could call myself idiot)  Just don't do it yourself.  Anyhoo, what could
be an instant fix but to run a piece of piano wire behind the front bridge
pins.  I know, this is blasphemy to the idea of the relation of the string
to the bridge pin and the cut, and besides the string would then ride up
on the B pin and beat. 
	But soon the pudding was proofed.  I got an astonishing increase in
sustain time of some of the crudiest sounding bass strings outside a
square piano. Other strings sound OK, but I believe this to be a fault in
the bass scaling. 
I had not heard of this procedure, so thought I had dreamed it up.  I did
not put a 
wire behind the back pins. 
	Now all I have to do is cut out a section of the wire and see if the
difference is audible. 
----------
> From: Joe & Penny Goss <imatunr@primenet.com>
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Bridge repair
> Date: Friday, April 24, 1998 10:32 PM
> 
> List,
> today I encountered a repair on an upright piano that has me stumped as
to
> its quality and or correctness.
> 
> The repair looks to be about 50 years old and the piano about 75 years
> young.
> The repair. I believe was intended to add down bearing and was
accomplished
> by placing piano wire (  (  16 gage ? could not measure ) long the
bridge
> pins.
> 
> In the bass, the string was placed close to the speaking length bridge
pins
> but  the plain wire strings had the added string close to the tail
bridge
> pins. this was done maybe to avoid different speaking lengths of the
plain
> wires as the longest plain wire strings had short pieces of wire placed
> along the speaking length alla the bass strings.
> 
> Has anyone seen such a repair??  Any thoughts??
> This is a 'store' piano of little value.
> My biggest concern I think is pitch stability, as when seating the
strings,
> as is my custom, the strings moved about 1/8" and I'm thinkin'' that
they
> will return to rest high on the bridge pins where they were.
> Joe
> You know your on the level if your bubble is in the middle.