A nice suprise fix

[Richard Brekne]

List:

I thought I'd put this in the mix just for kicks and any comment

I just "fixed" up an old german make (Krautzer or something like that, I can get
you the correct name and number if you like). This is typically the kind of piano
I just throw away, as its condition was just absolutely horrible. But
circumstances surrounding the ownership and some close personal relationships
convinced me to "paste" this thing back together. It is used in a home for the
retarded that has no chance of buying anything else, or even paying for the
repair..

The soundboard was extremely cracked up, ribs mostly pulled away, and this
horrendous warpage along one side of the worst crack. In addition someone at
sometime had tried to repair this board by screwing (countem) 149 screws through
the soundboard and into the ribs. Needless to say this was a miserable failure.
There was no downbearing anywhere along either bridge, and the board had no crown
left (perhaps even a bit of negative crown in the lower tenor area, hard to tell
because of the condition of the board)

Anyways... I told these folks what I think of such pianos, and that all I would
do was to reattach the ribs, and fill the cracks with epoxy to stop all the
buzzing /distortion, but that they should not expect any kind of good quality
sound. It would be made functional and nothing more.

I pulled the plate and removed all the strings, bored through the panel on each
side of all cracks along the ribs and  forced the board back together glueing
with epoxy (west system epoxy). Along the crack that was curled badly, the panel
just cracked up some more, so those and all other cracks were filled with the
same epoxy.

The interesting part tho has to do with how I reattached the ribs. There was
little holding any of them in place. I started at the top (treble) side of each
rib, wedged the panel slightly outwards before tightening the bolts and glueing,
then moved basswards. I noticed almost immediatly that each rib was being
"pulled" a bit towards the treble side. Each of the 149 screw holes were filled
with epoxy, and then tight dowels pushed into the holes to force as much epoxy
into any hidden loose spots between the ribs and the panel. When I got done with
the whole thing the lower end of each rib had moved quite a bit towards the
treble. The rib across the bass bridge moved actually about an inch. A couple
days of curring and I removed all wedges and measured the crown in the board.
Whoooaaa... tons of it. A string across the panel backside showed 2 mm in the
middle, and whats more it all looked really evenly graduated where ever I
stretched a line. After restringing there was just a bit of downbearing and
fairly uniform along the whole panel. (the lowest bass and lowest treble had the
least bearing, highest treble just a bit more, and the areas inbetween the most,
even through the treble / tenor break)

Its up to pitch now, and sounds absolutely great. I couldnt believe the sound
actually. pretty clean, not a hint of that "old beat to shi... soundboard" sound.
Really strong, especially the bass has that nice big boomy sound.  Nice crisp
high end, and no really bad spots or uneven spots anywhere.

I suppose I will have to wait to see how long this pasting will hold up, but in
anycase it was the nicest suprise I have had in a long time. It does seem to
point at a method of re-introducing crown to an old panel tho, and I got another
beater with a particularily nice case that I can experiment on. <grin>

Richard Brekne
I.C.P.T.G.  N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway