[pianotech] 1800's square.......

Leslie Bartlett l-bartlett at sbcglobal.net
Fri Jan 2 19:19:30 PST 2009


Can anyone on the list help me with this........  The man is about 20 
miles from me (not much in Houston), and I don't wish to drive that far 
out to see what kind of pins he might have. Would anyone have a clue, 
and also any clues as to where they would risk setting the pitch?
thanks
les bartlett
\

I believe the pins are oblong but I'm not really sure.  But it's made by 
Emerson, so if you are familiar with that brand then maybe you could 
find out how he designed most of his square grand pianos in the 1800s.  
I'm not sure where you are located but you might have to make a trip out 
to my house to check it out.  I live in Cypress.  I've played this piano 
and its not terribly out of tune, but I'll let you be the judge.


Subject: Re: Piano Tune

Oh my! First you'd have to tell me whether the pins are square or 
oblong.  If oblong, I'd have to have the dimensions at the top of the 
long part and the width, so I could see if I could get a tool for it. 
THEN we'd have to find how flat the pitch is, and how low to leave it.  
Probably wasn't designed for 440...   If you respond, I'll put this on 
the pianotech email list and see if anyone knows the pitch thing.  
Though the action is primitive, each "jack" should have a little string 
connected to a little spring. Those string loops are very prone to 
breaking on something that old.

Since you have a phone number labeled in French, do I need to bring a 
French lawyer??????????????

Be glad to help if I can. I'd charge X to tune it, $Yif we decided to 
raise the pitch and have to do it twice.    

tannerlaw2001 at aol.com wrote:
> Hello,
>
> What would you charge to tune a 130 year old square grand piano?  This 
> piano has all of its original parts.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090102/32855ed9/attachment.html>


More information about the pianotech mailing list

This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC