et al; the following relates to a 296K .GIF that I cannot send through Pianotech. If you have any interest let me know and I will send it to you individually.Thanks. Jim Bryant (FL) ---------------------------- <<"To heck with all that other stuff. What did you finally do with that rim repair? Ron ">> Ok Ron :-) I have attached a graphic file <296K.GIF> showing a before and after, albeit from different angles. Before I get into descrip[tion of the repair...notice the extreme tail length on the bass strings..this puts the bass bridge much further out on the board. The bass strings were made by David Sanderson and they sound 'really' good. I don't know what he did with rescaling, if anything, but the results are truly excellent. Now for the repair. As you hopefully can see from the graphic there are three problems.... 1. The rim/veneer is split and pulled away from the adjoining area. 2. The separation is both in length and in depth. i.e. the two pieces if just pulled down where the 'surfaces' were flush still left a 3/16ths gap from front to back. 3. The supporting knee underneath/behind the rim is pulled away from both the inner and outer rim front to back as well as from side to side. This meant that I had to pull the pieces together in two directions at the same time if the repair was going to be succesful and reunite the separate pieces in the same location as they were when the thingee was constructed....or close to it :-) I sawed conforming pieces for all the curves, inside and outside, where clamping was needful. Then I constructed angles where all the clamping forces would be parallel/perpendicular so as not to allow the curved clamping pieces to wander as force was exerted on them. I removed a section of the soundboard behind the bass bridge in order to get clamping pieces along the entire length of this crack {there were cracks like the one pictured in 4 places around the rim} I them placed pipe clamps from under the keybed... to behind the rear leg block. This allowed me to pull the separartion closed from front to back. Using the curved clamping forms I then placed clamps inside and outside of the rim, the entire width of the rim. In the bottom curved clamp form I drilled two Half inch holes in order to be able to run two large screws in the supporting knee, through the rim just as insurance :-) After dry several fitting runs I used A West epoxy for the filler/glue/ prayer item :-) Clamping the entire thing together with the expoxy running and me wiping cranking and sticking to everything was a thrill..............then when I had everything snugged up, in both planes, I drilled for, and inserted, two 4" washer headed, stainless steel screws through the bottom edge of the rim and into the supporting knee. (yes I left the screws in place) I let the repairs set for two days and then went on to the next repair (4 total). When all crack repair was done I replaced the sounboard panel that I had removed. All that was left to do then, after the clamping, was clean up, sand repair, match colors, and repaint flowers/vines/background colors/graining etc. The results were at least acceptable.....but like each one of you on your own thingee repair I can see where I 'could' have done better :-) I'm glad I did this job for a number of reasons but the next time a similar chance appears...........I think I shall practice safe technicianship and "just say no". Jim Bryant (FL)
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