[CAUT] durability (blocks)

[A440A at aol.com]

Jeff writes:

<< You don't mention restringing or pinblock health in your post, only  
action rebuilding.  I assume you're also restringing these pianos? >>

     Umm,  I believe that I did restring it, but will have to go over there 
and see.  The school was a private academy in the 60's, got a number of donated 
pianos,etc.  When we went to Vanderbilt in 1980, I went through the Peabody 
college inventory and picked out all the rebuild candidates.  That was the 
beginning point for my restoration program.  In the early years, there were piano 
budgets of unplannable size every other year, so I really had to hit the worst 
of the worst spots. The first job was an unplayable piano instead of any 
number of badly worn ones, because we needed another instrument. That meant 
sometimes I would leave the worn out, but regulated, action alone because the 
strings were a disaster and the pinblock had finally had enough.  
    Interestingly, there were a number of pinblocks with the original pins 
and strings from the 20's that I restrung and they have done beautifully for the 
last 25 years with 3/0 X 2 1/2 pins.  A good block is a durable one.  
    If an instrument is singing, and some of the older ones do, (not ALL 
soundboards die, just most of them),  I am real happy to leave the block in place 
if it feels like I want it to.  I came to Nashville and ran right into the 
luthiers/bluegrass/guitar-setup wizards here.  I was amazed at the respect they 
all held towards the acoustic integrity of instruments,ie, the "oneness" that 
is sometimes felt in an instrument, as though every single part of the 
instrument was equally charged with the sound it was producing.  Some of these people 
could tell if a pre-war Martin guitar had the heavier Grover tuners 
retro-fitted on it by its sound.  
       These people made much of entrainment principles in their instruments, 
going to great lengths to preserve as many of the original glue joints as 
possible.  The thought is that the wood fibers, subjected to continual stress, 
gradually assume the most efficient state of tension and compression.  At this 
state, the fibers most efficiently transmit energy, wasting as little as 
possible in heat.  They change strings one at a time to minimize the change of 
stress in their instrument.  ( I think entrainment is also pertinent to a 
discussion of what makes a responsive soundboard, but that is another big warehouse of 
speculation and various feckless experience.) 
    This, of course, has little to do with piano soundboards, other than when 
the occasional piano shows up, after 75 years, with a soundboard that is 
really alive, I take great pains to get that plate back in with the exact same 
down-bearing picture as what it had. I don't feel the need to second guess the 
instrument. If it is a hot axe with a bad pinblock, my goal is to have it strung 
up with a new block with the least amount of change to the whole sounding 
structure.   I do not know how to create that magical response in a board, but I 
know it when I hear it. 
    I have dozens of restringing jobs on old blocks that are a joy to tune, 
decade after decade, and I wish there were more of them. Alas,  I replace more 
blocks than I save.   


Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html