New screw-stringer parts

[gordon stelter]

Making parts for Mason screw-stringer pianos sounds
like the sort of thing Robert Streiucher of Pond Eddy
New York would, and could, do beautifully. He already
makes flawless components for Ampico systems and such.
     Thump

--- Mark Kinsler <kinsler33@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >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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