Hello Avery Todd et al. You wrote: "Many of us "older" techs have paid a LOT of bills with all those "plastic" parts! Thankfully, I no longer have to worry about that. Been there, done that! :-) I'll refer them to someone who's trying to make a living being self-employed!" I am self-employed. Who, in this profession, is not? And if not, why not? BUT.... if you ever come across an Irish upright called "Lindner" RUN AWAY!! - F A S T ! ! This piano is the ultimate disaster zone. Let's start with the frame: Square/Oblong tubular welded construction. The strings: Bicord - vertically strung. The KEYS (Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!... Hmmm. . ..) excuse me. They are hollow PLASTIC!! The key-frame? Tubular metal with extruded alloy balance rail. The balance pins: Non-existent....??? !! What Lindner did was develop a spring (from a clock-work motor I suppose) which was about 3/4" long. One end was buried in a sort of ferrule inserted into the under-side of the key, and the other end inserted into a plastic sort of push-into-the-balance-rail-and-move-sideways-to-align block. OK until you wanted to remove to replace the spring - and then it invariably broke. But read on! The key-frame is also the key-bed and is pivoted at the tail end so it can be dropped totally into the cavity behind the knee board. (remove upright trap-work first - which rods, by the way, are alloy with small walking stick type ferrules at each end.) Now the action.... how to describe this? The only wood in it is the hammer core and shank. The rest is shaped alloy or moulded plastic. The bridle is fine nylon braid terminating in a cap which fits on the end of the bridle wire - itself merely a part of the check wire which has been separated by tin-snips. The Butts are plastic moulded with plastic flanges throughout. The main action rail is extruded alloy and the flanges are like the key balance rail blocks - align the hammer (if you dare!) by sliding the blocks in a suitable direction. The damper bodies are alloy with more plastic blocks fitting into their own slot in the main action frame. The damper slap-rail is alloy with a slice of felt glued along the appropriate side. This is screwed to the alloy action standards by sheet-metal screws. The whole action may be removed by unclipping self-locking levers - one at each end of the action. To replace simply push in until you hear a satisfying click from the levers. Regulating the touch is by means of plastic "grub" screws accessed under the key frame. Now the case-work: Veneered MDF. WOW! - I mean WOW!! I think, judging by the welded frame, the piano must have been designed and built by an Irish farmer. He built up quite a factory and the story goes that when he went into liquidation (who's suprised?) he paid off his work-force in pianos. The biggest headache is, of course, the plastic parts which are, by now, all brittle. As an experiment I once had one of these given to me and I replaced the keyboard (the worst Achilles heel) with a bespoke keyboard - then promptly sold the beast and bought me Broadwood cottage grand No 857...... :-) Regards Michael G (UK) in dusky Sussex Downs. Maxim, my son, is 6 tomorrow.
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