innovative upright action

[Farrell]

I have a 1912 or so M&H upright with the leaf spring thing. FWIW. I have a second M&H upright where someone has removed the leaf springs. I wonder why?

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Bdshull@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 5:25 AM
Subject: Re: innovative upright action


> Andrew,
> 
> I have an 1890's Chickering and Sons 79B upright with the Schwander butt and 
> brass rail with the same secondary jack spring.  The first piano I owned with 
> this spring was a turn-of-the-century Bechstein upright.  This was a very 
> responsive action, although I suspect it wasn't because of the extra spring.  
>  Dolge's book has drawings which have the spring on Schwander and Langer 
> actions of the 19th century.   Mason and Hamlin had their own take on the 
> idea using a leaf spring;  I had a "Screwstringer" with this.
> 
> Greater minds than mine have expressed skepticism over this spring.  If the 
> idea is to return the jack quickly the coil-type jack spring also found on 
> these actions     does a sufficient job.  Getting the jack back under the 
> hammer butt is one thing;  maintaining some kind of perpetual engagement of 
> the two parts, which the grand repetition comes closest to doing, is not 
> accomplished by this design.  The Fandrich/Trivelas action does this, and I 
> can't see how any of these auxiliary springs function to maintain engagement. 
>  
> 
> It is interesting, though, that most of these actions with auxiliary jack 
> springs have the Schwander butt spring, a weaker spring which results in a 
> less rapid return of the hammer to rest.  This could keep the hammer/butt 
> assembly engaged with the jack, which may be one reason why these actions 
> seem responsive.  But the extra spring doesn't seem to me to do anything 
> different than the coil spring.  If so, it was sure a lot of trouble for 
> nothing.  
> 
> Any other thoughts on this spring? 
> 
> Bill Shull, RPT
> 
> In a message dated 6/18/02 4:39:33 PM Pacific Daylight Time, ANRPiano@AOL.COM 
> writes:
> 
> 
> > I had a customer bring by the action of the piano he is refinishing.  He 
> > wanted me to replace the bridal straps, dampers, etc.  This action includes 
> > 
> > one very unique feature which I, in my limited experience, (15 years) do 
> > not 
> > remember seeing before except on a certain west coast action.  There is a 
> > spring connecting the jack and hammer butt to speed the return of the jack 
> > under the butt.  The spring is about the length and shape of the hammer 
> > return spring and it is connected to the butt by means of a silk thread 
> > attached behind the jack felt on the butt.  There is also a slot in the 
> > jack 
> > for the silk to pass through in order to connect to the spring.  At the 
> > bass 
> > of the jack is a spring tensioner.  The piano is a Chickering Bros. (the 
> > Chicago branch of the family) apparently from the early part of the 
> > century.
> > 
> > BTW from the best I could tell this system worked as I imagined it was 
> > intended to work.  The jack did reset before the hammer returned to a full 
> > rest.
> > 
> > Has anyone seen one of these before?  I have seen a number of Chickering 
> > Bros. pianos and they all seem to be well built, often with "unique" 
> > features.  It seems the experimentation bug was genetic.
> > 
> > Andrew Remillard
> > 
> 
>