I was wondering if I should consider restoring my 1913 56" upright sometime in the not-so-near future. I don't have the money right now to do a full restoration, but I plan to restring in the near future, and there's a small chance I may get new hammers. The plate needs to be relacquered, but it has no cracks. The soundboard also seems to be sound (with no cracks), and when I stretch a string across the back (not a piano string) there's space between the middle of the string and the board (about 1/8") which tells me there is some crown. My area of concern (based on what you said) is the bass bridge. It has a hairline crack along several of the speaking side bridge pins (from approximately F1 to C2 or something like that (straddling the monochord/bichord crossover point, which is at F#1/G1). This piano has a 27-note bass with all plain-wire trichords on the long bridge starting at C3. The tuning pins are somewhat loose, so it won't hold a tuning for very long. I find myself tuning it once or twice a month. As of yet, though, I have found no reason to believe the pinblock is cracked. --- Dave Nereson <dnereson@dimensional.com> wrote: > > Not if it's it pretty poor shape. I always > figure: if you've got a > good plate, good soundboard & bridges (decent crown, > tone, and sustain; no > major cracks), and a good pinblock, the rest is > worth restoring, even if it > needs refinishing, new hammers & dampers, key > rebushing, etc. But without > those three major structural components, especially > on an upright, it's > usually not worth it unless you're going for a total > --David Nereson, RPT, Denver > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - live college hoops coverage http://sports.yahoo.com/
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