New Hammers on Old Piano

Farrell mfarrel2 at tampabay.rr.com
Sat Oct 14 03:48:50 MDT 2006


 Hey Terry
  I'm the proud owner of one this brilliant design & fine piece of engineering. This one is not 100 years old but built in the 20's. 

Yeah, I thought of you when I saw it. I remembered that you were digging into one. How did you date yours? I found a serial number on the soundboard at the treble end - #34XXX, which would mean it was built in the 1892 or so (I don't have the info in front of my - using memory!). However, the WNG action has patent dates of 1898 on it. And the plate web completely covers the pinblock on top. And the case is fully modern. Seems to me my date from Pierce may not be accurate.

 I haven't looked at it for a while but the plate,board & block should come out as a unit.  

Yes, I see that it would. The plate has a flange all the way around its perimeter that butts up to, and is screwed into, the outer rim. The inner rim is attached to the inside of the plate rim flange.

BTW this is a very stiff board/system Partly because it has a very straight  bridge roughly 2 inches tall which accounts for  quite a lot of  mass to move things around.

Did you notice how they did their doglegs on the bridge? These appear to be vertically laminated bridge roots, but like I sometimes do, they made full-sized doglegs and simply sawed through laminations and let several laminations terminate at the doglegs. Like I try to do, they have the bridge pin array perfectly centered right up to the dogleg. Very nice work, IMHO. 

I'll have to put a stethoscope down there to determine if any sound leaks out of those doglegs.....

  The overall sound was very musical. We nicknamed it killer because it's heavy on one side & it fell over on Dennis when He & Jacob moved it.  ....He survived to name it.....yes.....killer
  When I hammer it  I will sample ,sample but I will lean towards trying the Wurzens first or  Whatever works best.  I am very excited to get this piano up & running.
  Dale

Are you putting a new board in it or going with the original? If new, are you charging for two sets of ribs!?

Terry Farrell
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