Ibach Grand

[Jon Page]

Tom,
I service one Ibach grand, the only one I've seen. It is a very nice piano.
If you are not afraid of sticker actions these regulate nicely.

Instead of the dreaded rocker-arm, this one has a turnbuckle between
the center pin attachment and the wippen, very stable.
It is a rebuildable piano and I would not hesitate to recondition the wippens
during the process.  Of course your customer's piano may be different.

Last week I surveyed the touchweight on a Bechstein grand (1885) with
a rocker-arm sticker action. The friction averaged 7gr across the board.
I attributed this to not having the capstan-to-wippen cushion friction effect.
The hammer centers were not extaordinarilly loose and the wippen flange
centers were a little tight.  So that's what brought me to that conclusion.
The averages:  KR .48, SR 5.6, BW 38; after filing, tapering and graduating
the SW to the lower half of the low zone.

The person who purchased the Bechstein asked about the effect of
modernizing the wippens when new h/s/f are installed. I said it would be up
to him to decide whether he wanted a "museum piece" or something less
fragile with parts availability.

Regards,

Jon Page
Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass. (jpage@capecod.net)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At 10:31 PM 1/2/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Dear List,
>
>I have a customer who tells me that her son has an 1890s Ibach that he
>wants to sell. I thought that I'd get some reaction from list persons if
>anyone is knowledgeable about this piano. The customer says that it's in
>excellent condition (meaning, I suppose, that it's never been dropped
>off a truck). Assuming original stringing and action, any thoughts on
>the value and rebuildability?
>
>Tom
>
>-- 
>Thomas A. Cole, RPT
>Santa Cruz, CA
>mailto:tcole@cruzio.com
>