Bird-Cages/Fogger/Snide remarks

[John Musselwhite]

At 10:28 PM 12/21/01 +0000, John D. wrote:

 >Brinsmead used underdampers in the 1860's and his patents show 
underdampers but
 >he continued to produce overdampers even for very fine pianos until quite 
late in the
 >century.

I mentioned this a couple of months ago, but one of the finest upright 
pianos I've ever worked on was a Brinsmead Overdamper with the 
screw-stringer type tuning arrangements. Not only did it tune very nicely 
and had the rather unique tuning pin arrangement, but every piece of felt 
or cloth was neatly sewn to the wood to which it was attached, and every 
piece of leather had a tiny brass nail in it. All of the "tropicalizing" 
work was beautifully done and everything was perfectly aligned. Almost all 
of the strings were still original and you could still see the plating on 
them. It was generally in excellent condition and was magnificent at this 
age so it must have been incredible when it was new.

I really liked the arrangement with the tuning pins. It was much better 
than the Mason & Hamlin type, especially when it comes to changing strings 
because no knots are involved.

Playability, tuning and damping were perfectly acceptable as well. I took 
some snap shots of it, though they aren't developed. If anyone's interested 
I'll get them done and if they turn out I'll scan them in and upload them 
to the Yahoo Piano-technicians group file area.

                 John



John Musselwhite, RPT    -     Calgary, Alberta Canada
http://www.musselwhite.com  http://canadianpianopage.com/calgary
mailto:john@musselwhite.com    http://www.mp3.com/fatbottom