unusual wippens (Ludwig grand)

[Tom Sivak]

List

I was asked to tune and evaluate an old Ludwig grand
for a new client.  She had gotten the piano for free,
and it was horribly out of tune.  She had plans to
renovate the piano and wanted to know if it was "worth
it".  I didn't have to drive there to tell her the
answer, but I did go and tune it and then took the
action out to examine the condition.

Holy cow.  I have never seen an action like this
before.   The wippens had no repetition lever!   It
was as if it were simply missing.  But it wasn't.  It
was designed that way.

The wippen consisted of a straight piece of wood with
the heel on the under side and the flange on the back.
 There was a little flange, like an upright piano
action flange that held the jack to the wippen.  There
was a long spring extending up from that straight
piece of wood.  The spring looked like a really big
hammer return spring on an upright, and indeed, that
was its function here.    There was also a button to
regulate the position of the jack under the knuckle,
forward and aft, but no repetition lever, no window,
nothing.  The jack just stood there like a little
soldier, holding up the hammer.

The hammer shank had a Brambach-style knuckle, and
next to the knuckle was a little post at a 90 degree
angle to the shaft that had a loop of silk on the end
of it.  The hammer return spring  hooked into that
little loop and helped the hammer come back away from
the string, along with gravity, of course.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this?  (I guess I
know the answer to that one, too, but I still have to
ask it.)   

Tom Sivak
Chicago