No Subject

[JIMRPT@AOL.COM]

et al; the following relates to a 296K .GIF that I cannot send through 
Pianotech. If you have any interest let me know and I will send it to you 
individually.Thanks.
Jim Bryant (FL)
----------------------------


<<"To heck with all that other stuff. What did you finally do with that rim 
repair?

 Ron ">>

Ok Ron :-)
  I have attached a graphic file <296K.GIF> showing a before and after, 
albeit from different angles.

  Before I get into descrip[tion of the repair...notice the extreme tail 
length on the bass strings..this puts the bass bridge much further out on the 
board. The bass strings were made by David Sanderson and they sound 'really' 
good. I don't know what he did with rescaling, if anything, but the results 
are truly excellent.

 Now for the repair. As you hopefully can see from the graphic there are 
three problems....
1. The rim/veneer is split and pulled away from the adjoining area.
2. The separation is both in length and in depth. i.e. the two pieces if just 
pulled down where the 'surfaces' were flush still left a 3/16ths gap from 
front to back.
3. The supporting knee underneath/behind the rim is pulled away from both the 
inner and outer rim front to back as well as from side to side.
  
 This meant that I had to pull the pieces together in two directions at the 
same time if the repair was going to be succesful and reunite the separate 
pieces in the same location as they were when the thingee was 
constructed....or close to it :-)

  I sawed conforming pieces for all the curves, inside and outside, where 
clamping was needful.  Then I constructed angles where all the clamping 
forces would be parallel/perpendicular so as not to allow the curved clamping 
pieces to wander as force was exerted on them.

 I removed a section of the soundboard behind the bass bridge in order to get 
clamping pieces along the entire length of this crack {there were cracks like 
the one pictured in 4 places around the rim}

  I them placed pipe clamps from under the keybed... to behind the rear leg 
block. This allowed me to pull the separartion closed from front to back.
  Using the curved clamping forms I then placed clamps inside and outside of 
the rim, the entire width of the rim.  In the bottom curved clamp form I 
drilled two Half inch holes in order to be able to run two large screws in 
the supporting knee, through the rim just as insurance :-)
  After dry several fitting runs I used A West epoxy for the filler/glue/ 
prayer item :-)  Clamping the entire thing together with the expoxy running 
and me wiping cranking and sticking to everything was a 
thrill..............then when I had everything snugged up, in both planes, I 
drilled for, and inserted, two 4" washer headed, stainless steel screws 
through the bottom edge of the rim and into the supporting knee. (yes I left 
the screws in place)
  I let the repairs set for two days and then went on to the next repair (4 
total).
When all crack repair was done I replaced the sounboard panel that I had 
removed.

All that was left to do then, after the clamping, was clean up, sand repair, 
match colors, and repaint flowers/vines/background colors/graining etc.
 The results were at least acceptable.....but like each one of you on your 
own thingee repair I can see where I 'could' have done better :-)

  I'm glad I did this job for a number of reasons but the next time a similar 
chance appears...........I think I shall practice safe technicianship and 
"just say no".
Jim Bryant (FL)