piano dismantlers

[Clark]

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I started learning about pianos again when I started dismantling them more or
less regularly, sometimes the things manufacturers would rather not have people
know. You know the calls where people want to get rid of pianos and are willing
to pay to move them out, well in some cases I'll pay for the move, sometimes even
for the piano.

For what it's worth, here are some of the features I look for in order:

Full sets of ivory, chipped or not
Solid maple backposts
Interesting veneer (if rosewood, put as #2)
Tight-grained soundboard panels
Interesting case parts
Useful actions
...

Very little gets discarded (mainly plates and bridges). All of the screws get
indexed. All of the usable soundboard planks get indexed. Even veneers sometimes
get stripped and indexed. Is this what you had in mind?

Well, I end up using most of these things fairly quickly on new instruments. But
I can usually get a piano mostly apart by myself in a little over an hour.

I am fairly cautious about which pianos get scrapped; however, this gem is from
the Music Instrument Makers Forum (please note the closing passage, I encountered
this sentiment again today):

"If you ever see an old deceased uptight piano, grab it. The soundboards are made
of 1/4" spruce, aged to perfection. The boards are usually six inches wide and
there are inconvienient hole here and there, but hundred year old spruce is worth
something, if only for braces and dulcimore tops. The rest of the pianos are made
of local hardwoosa under those veneers.I got some really nice, non-wormy chestnut
from one, and some great poplar heart from another. You are not commiting
sacrilige, the old piano's harps (the metal part) can't take modern string
tensions."

Clark

btw. news just in from the Ad Hoc International Committee on International Pitch
- The long awaited update to the reference pitch finally was made last month. It
is with great pleasure that we introduce A=523hz... ;)

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