pinblocks and materials

[Mark Kinsler]

>There was the Mason Hamlin screw stringers.  They wrapped the string around
>a hook of a J shaped screw and then pulled the J up by way of a nut that 
>was
>adjustable by a tuning wrench that was kept with the piano.  It was VERY
>stable, but after the years the brass that the pieces were made of
>crystallized as did the combs that separated the J-bolts and kept them in
>place.  After the more than 100 years since that system was discontinued 
>you
>need new ones made to restring them.  I have three of these pianos but have
>not gotten around to restringing them yet.  Anyone know of a source for new
>screw stringer bolts, nuts, and combs?  I need to know.

Is there a market for stuff like this?  Without seeing them, it seems that 
they'd be simple enough to make.

>There was also the Wurlitzer system.  I have a console from the thirties
>that looks normal, but you take off a board behind the "pinblock" to find
>there is no pinblock.  The tuning pins go through the cast iron and the
>normally threaded end is split.  There is a brass wedge driven into the
>split.  This piano had a couple of loose tuning pins, and I found I could
>not remove the pin.  I opened the back to find the odd arrangement.  I 
>drove
>the brass wedges in on those pins and voila! they were tight again.  It
>works really well.  I don't know why more pianos were not made using this
>system.

Mighta been wound up with Wurlitzer patents or something.  There were _so_ 
many piano patents.  My favorite is the one which had the strings 
electrically insulated from the piano plate.  This, it was claimed, would 
'preserve the electricity' in each piano string and thus provide unspecified 
benefits.

I came upon this when I was doing an old-fashioned patent search on an 
electric piano I was working on years ago.  Although the law specifies that 
a patentable device must be 'useful,' in practice the granting of a patent 
does not always mean that an idea will really work.

Mark Kinsler

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