Broadwood Dating

[A440A@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 9/8/0 11:47:00 PM, mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com writes:

<<  The piano is straight strung, but

has a full sectional plate. One section is the piece with all the hitch

pins, one is covering the pinblock and has all the agraffes (yes, all

strings run though an agraffe), and these two are connected with bolt-on

struts and other steel whathaveyous. They didn't have that much metal in a

piano in 1825 - did they? I think this piano must be early 1870s. It has a

single escapement action. Anyone with enough experience here to comment? The

piano in many ways is real nice.


Greetings, 
    Be careful if you disassemble the plate.  Reassembly requires a certain 
chronology, as the struts are fitted into holes in the hitch plate and the 
wedge anchors that screw in behind them cannot be pounded too hard.  The nose 
bolts will be pinned to the struts, and the struts will break easily if you 
force them off. 
   The let-off buttons are the only adjustment.  You may need to heat the 
screws to turn them.  There must be lost motion, so you have to set the 
hammer line and back rail felt together. Lotta other stuff, how far you going 
into this thing?  And do the tuning pins have screw threads on them, which go 
into the metal threads in the plate before the reach the threaded pinblock 
holes?  
Guy Nichols and I both went through one like this earlier this year,  he will 
have more details. 
  You will love working with these dampers, they screw in to the posts. 
Regards, 
Ed Foote