Chickering

[Ron Nossaman]

At 04:41 PM 3/18/99 EST, you wrote:
>Hey y'all
> In my shop I have an old Chickering 5'8" grand. Brasss flangie dohickeys , of
>course :-) This grand is antiqued and has floral designs with vines climbing
>all over it.  The reason it is in my shop is for a complete rebuild and a
>clean up/preservation of the art deco work on the case. It has sat in a vacant
>house on the ocean for about 16 years. The house is now being restored by the
>new owner and all the enterior furnishings are being redone as close to
>original as possible....thus enters the piano. (the piano will be mainly
>furniture but needs to be in a 'playable' condition :-)
>
>  Now all the work on this thing is gonna be straightforward...except...there
>is a split on the rim.  The split is right at the end of the platform for the
>back leg and runs the full width (top to bottom) of the rim. Also the 'split'
>is really a failed glue joint where the two sections of rim were joined
>together at an angle.
>Behind the rim, and on top of the platrform, are two solid oak 'knees' aprox 5
>1/4" thick. These knees were put there to provide gluing surface/strength for
>the two rim sections is my guess.
>  I am planning on removing a section of soundboard behind the bass bridge to
>gain gluing/clamping access to top and bottom of the knees/rim joint and then
>jigging up formed clamping boards...... glue and clamp.
>
>  Question: Has anyone addressed this particular problem before? If so how did
>you handle it?  Any thoughts/suggestions?
>Jim Bryant (FL)
>
>

Hi Jim,
I'm trying to picture this. I can't recall anything specific about how
Chickerings are put together. See, there are some benifits to getting old.
Is this the inner rim, block construction, rather than bent? Is the joint on
the transition between the straight side and the tail? Is anything actually
loose? Crack WIDENING?!! Can you get the platform off and reach things
without going through the top?

 Ron