Square piano

[Susan Kline]

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Well, Michael, if all that doesn't warn him off, nothing will!

I've only had to use vellum once on one of these, and I fudged and used the 
top 1/2" of a dress kid glove my customer supplied, but I have needed to do 
some other repairs. The jack springs are held by thread loops (at least on 
the squares I tangled with) and though most are amazingly intact, now and 
then one has broken. Not hard to replace (I used silk cord) except that 
getting access to the part is hard. I did replace a hammer shank on a 
square once, for a lady who was retiring and wanted to play. She had a 
photo from 100 years before, of some fairly rough-looking male relatives 
standing in front of her piano, from the 1880's. I needed a 3/16" shank, 
but longer than a spinet shank. I had to get a 3/16" dowel from the 
hardware store.

Don, as for pitch, in your place I'd talk with the owner, and unless there 
is some overriding factor, I'd tune it to keep the middle register at the 
same pitch you find it, which already implies raising the treble a little 
bit. I would develop considerable resistance to the idea of raising the 
bass at all. I remember replacing a bass string I broke tuning a square, 
and then just the slight flexing needed to install the new string was 
enough to break a neighboring bass string. :-((

I did restring a square once, for a flute player who needed it to match the 
flute. I used the original pins in place -- just backed them off enough to 
slip a new coil over them. It worked pretty well. I was a lot younger and 
more energetic than I find myself now.

Don't be petrified with fear, or anything -- it's a piano, after all -- but 
yes, don't promise the moon.

Actually, I've had more near-death experiences working on a series of old 
Viennese grands which a non-musical lady who owned a clock shop was in the 
habit of hauling over to California in containers.

Susan



At 10:19 AM 6/29/2005 +0100, you wrote:
>Hello Don P and List
>I have a few squares on my regular rounds - in museums and country houses. 
>I had to make my own tuning "T" hammer to tune them with. I only use a "T" 
>hammer on these as a lever takes too much room and cannot get the handle 
>in the right position because of the high sides around the wrest plank. 
>Two of my squares are  built around 1780 or so. One uses whale-bone for 
>its damper springs. Most use vellum hinges for the hammers and dampers. Go 
>armed with a vellum saw and some vellum - which you can get from any early 
>music timpanist as off-cuts from replacing skins. The action will probably 
>be in two sections The treble section will only be about one 8ve. You may 
>be lucky and find the tops of the keys have been marked with an "O" with a 
>line through it to indicate under which keys the screws holding the action 
>in place are situated. You may have difficulty in pulling up the 
>name-board and the key slip-rail to remove them - but that's what you'll 
>have to do to get the action out. BEWARE! The damper wires may be attached 
>directly to the tails of the keys. If this is so you'll have to unscrew 
>them on-by-one - a very dicey task if they've been in situ for a few 
>hundred years - before you can extract the action. The tuning pins may go 
>along the spine or along the treble end of the instrument. Before you 
>start tuning use coloured centre-rail washers to indicate the A's and 
>different colours for the F's and the C's - you will find this incredibly 
>useful in finding your way around the tuning. For Squares I always use an 
>ETD with many pitches to set the bearings. I have a KORG Chromatic Tuner 
>CA-30 which does quite nicely as it is impossible to be wholly accurate on 
>these old beasts. For a wedge I use a very small rubber wedge otherwise 
>the flexibility of those strings will not allow the wedge to stay upright. 
>I dare say you could use a bit of hard check felt suitably cut. 
>Finally.... discover and keep to the ruling pitch of the instrument. 
>Altering pitch on them is courting possible disaster.... AND..... have fun!
>Regards from a Sunny Village in the Sussex Downs
>Michael G.(UK)

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