WARNING! tHIS IS A LONG, RAMBLING, QUASI-TECHNICAL POST ON ANCIENT STEINWAY VERTICALS. IF YOU ALREADY KNOW THE STORY, OR EVEN IF YOU DON'T, YOU'LL PROBABLY BE BORED. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! HERE GOES.--LES On Wed, 8 Oct 1997 NBWW@aol.com wrote: > Hi all. > This is a new experience for me. The thrill of a new adventure! My palms a > sweating! I am a new comer to the computer and the internet. Heard about > this from other techs. > I'm restoring an 1870 Steinway vertical and need 6 original butts and 6 > original wippens. I'm just doing the action and trapwork at this time. > Restringing to follow as the budget allows. Since no one else jumped on this, I say a few (okay, more than a few!) words about this. First, however, if you've never worked on one of these before, it might be a good idea to slip into you BROWN corduroys, first. You'll see why in a minute. Historical perspective. Your piano was built in 1870. It wouldn't be until six years LATER that a brash young army general and his men would be im- mortalized in a losing stand against the Souix Indians on a battlefield at the Little Bighorn River in Montana. The same year that Custer and his men perished, the US was celebrating its Centennial in Philadelphia. Part of that included a huge piano exhibition in which the newly redesigned in- struments--including a stunning new concert grand-- of Ernest Knabe from Baltimore would make the piano world sit up and take notice. Unfortunate- ly Knabe's moment in the sun would last just twenty years. When Ernest died in 1894, Knabe's future died, too. From there it was all down hill. Never again would they be a "contender". Yet I imagine that when Ernest died, even Steinway breathed a sigh of relief. His pianos were THAT good. Finally, at that same exhibition, a young inventor named Bell showed off an invention for the first time that would literally change the world, the telephone. The piano you're talking about repairing/restoring was made BEFORE these long-distant events took place. It has outlived not only its makers and original owners, but Custer and Bell and Knabe and the many generations who came after them, too. Quite, frankly, that impresses me. A lot. It should impress you, too. Whenever I open up one of these relics from days long passed, and look inside I feel something like the hushed reverence I feel when I walk into a church. I feel in the presence of something very special, very rare, and utterly without peer today. Pull off the bottom board. Down near the bottom of the plate, you'll find the date it was cast by Steinway. It'll read something like 25/3/80, using the old day/month/ year format. When you look inside the piano from the top you'll see something unique: hammers, butts, damper-levers, wippens, keys, dowel- capstans, tubular-metal action rails, "signature" Steinway flanges, strings, felts, case parts, etc., etc., all not merely ASSEMBLED by Steinway, but BUILT by them too. Parts which could be found in no other piano made, only Steinway. Wow! And here it is, 127 years later, still functional enough that we're talking about repairing/restoring it to see if maybe we can maybe coax another century or so out of it. In- credible. In 1870, when that piano was built, Steinway had been manufacturing pianos here in the states for less than 20 years. The pre-eminent piano in America was still Chickering, but Steinway already had them clearly in their sights. In the Chickering factories, the worker's mantra was "We're number one, we're number one! In Steinway's factories the mantra was "Kill Chickering, Kill Chickering"! To this end Steinway spared no expense, never compromised quality in favor of corporate expediency.In the days long before the bean-counters, the clock-watchers, and the ef- ficiency experts made their appearance, Steinway set out to build the finest piano in the world, no matter what the expense. They succeeded. You're looking at one. And the reason why, a few short years later, it was the workers in Steinways factories who were jubilantly chanting "We're number one, We're number one". Meanwhile, back at Chickering, everyone had been reduced to puzzling "Hey, what happened? Hey, what happened?" Steinway was what had happened. Chickering would never re- cover, neither would anyone else. Since the day Steinway overtook Chickering, there have only been two piano manufacturers in the US: Steinway and everyone else. And that's why that ancient 1870 Steinway upright you'e looking at deserves both your respect and the very best work you're capable of doing. Nothing less! Now, here's where those brown corduroy's come in. You said "right now I'm just doing the action-work." JUST. Kind of reminds me of when the captain of the Titanic said to his first officer, "Wow, look at the size of that iceberg over there! Swing her closer so I can get a bet- ter look! :) Here's why. First of all, I assume that this piano has a seven octave span, a 3/4 plate and an open-faced pinblock, right? That really wasn't that hard because back then they all did. However, can you identify the model of this Steinway? Is it an "E", or an "F", or perhaps a N, O, L, R,T, X, H, or S ? Relax, I'm pulling your chain, it'll be either an E or an F. The difference? Four inches. The E is 48" tall, the F is 52" tall. Knowing the model is important. You'll see why. Despite the fact that Steinway upright actions of this vintage are among the best engineered and executed ever made, after more than a century it is probable that serious action problems exist with this piano. These problems fall into two major catagories and are com- pounded by the fact that replacement action parts haven't been avail- able from Steinway itself FOR DECADES. Oh-oh! The next time you'er work- ing on a relatively modern Steinway upright look inside and try to find those "tubular-metal action rails" and those snazzy "signature" Steinway flanges. Hey, they're missing! And so are the butts, damper- levers, wippens and countless other parts that used to make Steinway a Steinway. Why? Maybe they weren't so well designed in the first place, huh? Right. And maybe if you wait up Christmas eve you might see Santa slide down the chimney, too! The two most common action problems encountered on these old Steinways are action parts are so worn out from use that they can no longer be salvaged, or else the presence of an action-killer clalled "Verdigris", or, simply, "The Greenies." Both are major headaches. You must deter- mine the condition of the action before you can possibly give an esti- mate for making it functional again. If you have ALREADY given an esti- mate, without examining the action closely, you're dead. Consider mov- ing out of town and changing your name annd phone number.No kidding. Assuming that you're still alive here, pull the action. Warning: you better own an action cradle! If you try to set the action on your bench it will promptly fall over, undoubtedly breaking numerous fragile parts, causing you to have to raise you estimate considerably. OK, it's in the action cradle. Now what? Put your finger on the back of each hammer and GENTLY wiggle it from side to side. Try the same thing with the wippens, and then--gulp--the damper levers. Chances are that you are going to find an extreme amout of side-to-side play in the hammers and wippens indicating severely worn action centers. Worse you're certain to find excessive play in the damper levers. Loosen the little retaining plate on one, remove it and take a close look at it. See that little groove in the lever that holds and squares the lever to the centerpin? See how it's worn so badly that the lever rubs against it neighbors and in the process misses one or two of the strings it's supposed to dam- pen. If so, you've got the "Old Steinway Damper-Lever Blues!" A killer to fix unless you can find exact replacements. LOTS O' LUCK. You see, those damper levers are unlike any others you've ever seen, or will ever see again unless you do another Steinway upright of similar vintage. I'll explain in a minute. Now's as good a time as any to get the rest of the bad news. You know how modern uprights use damper spoons to lift the dampers when the key is depressed? SURPRISE! Your 1970 Steinway doesn't have damper spoons at all. Take a look at the back of the wippen. He,he,he. Instead of a spoon you find a wooden flange into which is inserted an adjusting screw which is accessed by a HOLE in the BOTTOM of the damper lever! You know, the ones that are worn so bad you can't reuse them. So if you want to re- tain the integrity of the action, your're going to have to come up with similar wippens and damper levers. These, as you may have already assumed, are not readily-available, over-the-counter items. For that matter, you can't even get them UNDER-the-counter, unless you're lucky anough to find another tech who's "parting out" an old action.It happens. Sometimes. IF you're lucky. Are you feeling "lucky" so far? Stick with me. More good news follows. :) Verdigris. The "greenies". The action-killer. Push the hammer rail for- ward until all the hammer are touching the strings. Release the hammer rail. Do all the hammer quickly return to their rest position, or do they just seem to float back there in slow motion, or maybe not even get all the way back at all? Try the jacks. Push down on the heel of each one with a thin bladed screwdriver, then release it quickly. Does it pop back smartly to its rest position, or does it, too, seemingly move in slow motion. Remove a hammer and its flange from the high treble where there are no dampers. look at the side of the flange. Can you see the felt bushing and the end of the centerpin, or are they covered with a dark- green waxy substance? Lastly, look at the underside of the flange, More green stuff? Sluggish action centers and the presence of Verdegris, mean that you have big-time problems brewing. And you were worried about those damper levers! Stick with me. I won't beat up on you TOO much longer. Question: Have you ever made a hammer spring rail? You know, fabricated one from scratch? Get ready. In something this old it is probable that the hammer springs are shot--too weak to do the job, even once you have the action centers working freely, and so brittle that they'll break when you try to bend them. And don't even think about using those "broken hammer spring repair" do-dads sold by the supply houses. I once saw a Steinway were the tech had installed 88 of those babies IN ADDITION to the original springs. 176 springs, 2 per hammer, PLUS about a quart of WD-40 (another no-no) and the recalcitrant hammers still just ever-so-slowly " moseyed" back to their rest positions. A new hammer rail is a distinct possibility. I COULD go on and on, but I won't. Enough. Probably more than enough, but you get the idea. THOROUGHLY check out the action in your piano, look- ing for the problems I mentioned above and you'll have a much better idea of what you're up against. Pianotech includes some of the finest techni- cians not just in the country, but in the world. When you post back they'll be able to guide you through the intricacies of fabricating a hammer-spring rail, dealing with Verdigris, rebushing old flanges, salvaging old action parts, or adapting new ones to your needs, and the zillion other problems you're likely to run into when working on that old dinosaur. Early on, you'll discover that one approach to severely worn action parts and extensive Verdigris is to replace ALL the action parts with new ones. Genuine Steinway replacement parts have't been avaiable from Steinway, itself, for DECADES, however, new "knock-off" replacewments ARE available from a couple of places, Wally B and Japan (!) for two. That's the good news. The bad news is the price. Astronomical, relatively speaking, even at the wholesale level. So keep those brown cords handy when checking the cost of rebuilding the entire action with new parts. And keep a pair in reserve for the piano's owner when you give him the estimate. There IS a bright side to this approach, however. Since this is a 7 octave piano, you're only going to need 85 of everything instead of 88! :) You're also going to run into technicians who will advise you to "junk that clunk". They'll tell you that because of all the problems I outlined above--PLUS all the others I didn't even tell you about!-- the piano is just not worth the time and expense that it would take to salvage it and that the money would be best used if it were applied to a new piano. They will recommend that YOU part out the action to others dumb enough to try to save one of these worn-out relics of the past and then smash the case to smithereens, use it as kindling in your fireplace and roast weenies over the blaze. A lot of techs support this position. As a matter of fact, I would guess that if old Jonas Chickering and his sons were alive today and on-line with Pianotech, they would readily volunteer their services to any tech contemplating such a course of action. I'm equally sure that not only would they bring their own chain saws and sledge hammers, but that they'd bring the weenies, too! I would suggest approaching this piano as a learning experience. You're not only going to learn a lot about old Steinways, you're going to learn something about yourself as well. Further, if you persevere, if you stick with it, if you go on to do other old Steinways, you may in time come to appreciate why, against competition such as this, Chickering never really had a chance. No chance at all. Best of luck. Enjoy the experience! Les Smith lessmith@buffnet.net
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