Value of Chickering grand

[Ron Nossaman]

Hi Paul,

------------
> The block is screwed to the plate
>in the usual fashion but none of the screws pass thru the block into the
>rim at any point.Nor is the block glued to the rim or the stretcher!! I'll
>be rectifying THAT. 

* Just out of curiosity, why? It isn't structurally necessary, and I doubt
it particularly helps tuning stability. It would raise the impedance of the
treble V-bar some, I suppose, so it probably wouldn't hurt. I've done it in
the past too, but I wonder how necessary or beneficial it was. FWIW, the
current Baldwins are set up the same way. You can pull the
plate/strings/pinblock as a unit. It sure makes tear down nice when you can
do this since you can punch the tuning pins out from the bottom in half the
time that it takes with a drill motor from on top. 


>The thing that has been driving me nuts, and the point of this post is to
>ask this: The piano has tuning pin bushings. The largest diameter pin
>bushing that any vendor seems to carry is 7/16" and these just "drop" in
>the plate...too small. 1/2" ( if there were such a thing) will be to big,
>so what I'm needing is a bushing that has an O.D of 15/32" or 31/64"
>
>Any suggestions? I don't like the idea of CA or epoxy to secure the 7/16"
>size.I'm toying with the idea of just leaving the bushings out
>Who needs the aggrevation.
>
>Paul E. Dempsey, RPT
>Marshall University 
>Huntington, WV
>

* Well, if you leave them out, it won't hurt anything, but might look a
little strange. I guarantee the pins won't ever be riding the plate. If they
ever lean that far forward, the string tension will pull them right out of
the block. %-) Or, if you like the feel of bushings, find some dowel stock
the right size (trial and error. as sloppy as the manufacturing tolerances
are for dowels, something out there is just about right) and cut a set of
plugs that you drill after installation in the plate. I've gone it this way
and it makes for an obscenely expensive set of bushings, but it looks and
feels right when you're done. A tumble sander helps so you don't have to
break the splintery saw cut edge on all those plugs by hand. 

 Ron