Bass Bridge in old Ebersole Upright

[Farrell]

I will assume you are just trying to make the piano work, rather than a thorough rebuilding job. The thunk may simply be 94 year old bass strings gone tubby. New strings should fix that.

Remove bass strings, check bridge - if it is not loose from apron, or apron is not loose from board - I would suggest to just leave it alone. I have seen some screws in bridge tops to appeared to be original.

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Smith" <dsmith941@hotmail.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 6:46 PM
Subject: Bass Bridge in old Ebersole Upright


> I am looking for advice on a Ebersole upright circa 1908 on which I am
> practising tuning, repair and regulation.  The entire bass of the piano is
> very dull -THUNK.  The bridge has no noticeable cracks, but does have two
> interesting "features".  One is a buggered-up bolt which goes into the
> bridge from its top at the extreme bass end.  This one is obviously a 'fix'
> which didnt fix.  The second is a flathead screw countersunk very neatly
> into the bridge at about its center.  Having not seen a lot of pianos yet, I
> suspect this is also part of an attempted fix, but wonder if any of you have
> seen older pianos with any screws like this through the bridge into the
> apron??
> 
> It looks to me like someone tried to fix either the dead bass or maybe a
> tuning instability with these pieces of hardware.  Before I attempt to
> follow the procedure to loosen bass strings, remove bridge and apron, clean
> up, reglue, etc, I did show it to Phil Bondi.  He advised me to also ask
> here.
> Help?
> 
> Dave Smith
> Pine Island FL