An interesting spinet

[PatchWick@aol.com]

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In a message dated 4/30/2003 11:09:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
Piannaman@aol.com writes:

> 
> I know that subject line seems like a bit of an oxymoron, but it's true.  I 
> worked on a spinet the other day that was at least an attempt to make a 
> good piano.  
> 
> It was a 1947 George Steck.  The first interesting thing I noticed when I 
> took off the music desk was that the lifter wires did not slide into slots 
> on the ends of the keys.  Instead, there were holes drilled through the 
> key-ends that the wires poked through.  Lost motion regulation was 
> accomplished by turning a round wood nut that was held in place by a cork 
> nut like you find on many player parts.  My first thought was "how do you 
> get these out of here without a major hassle and crumbling pieces??"  
> 
> I opened the bottom to adjust the pedal mechanism, and I found my answer:  
> there is a rail with flanges screwed to it iunder the keybed that has 
> lifters to which the lifter wires are attached.  The whippens rest on a 
> felt platform at the opposite end of each lifter.  So one has to detach 
> nothing to get the action out, except the four bracket bolts.  
> 
> Definitely a better mousetrap, but I'm sure in the end it proved far too 
> costly to fabricate.  Anybody else ever seen one of these?  I was also 
> surpised by the lack of false beats in the high treble(though, as usual, 
> the bass was torture). 
> 
> Dave Stahl 
> 

I've seen several over the years, and you are right! As spinets go they tend 
to be in pretty good shape and quite easy to work on!

will

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