Saddest O of the Week

[A440A]

Greetings all, 
     I may have seen a casualty this morning.   A liquor-fire seems to have
started on the opened lid of a 1920 model O Steinway, and run all the way down
the treble leg and bent side.  
     The outer rim lamination of the case was destroyed from the front of the
piano to the beginning of the tail's curve,(just about all of the bent side),
and the  the rim was charred  at the bottom where the bent side meets the back
edge of the keybed .  This char is about about 1/4" deep.  The remaining rim
looks pretty solid.  It was a flash fire, (cognac on the chair beside
it.....), and it seems that the outer lamination broke loose from the heat as
it burned, leaving the underneath layers still intact.  
     I know that the piano needs a new soundboard, (and the block was shot
before the fire).  The perfect ivory tells me to really try to save this
piano, but that missing lamination on one side has me wary.  I am waiting a
call from the factory restoration guys, but I would also like to hear from
anybody on the list that has dealt with a case like this. 
Regards, 
Ed Foote 
(hope the Village Voice article this week doesn't make any of y'all's lives
more complicated, but we better all start dusting off our Jorgensen! (:)}}