Setting the plate

[Pianotech]

You might contact Dr. Jim Colman Sr. He has a way to get back your crown by
cutting the bridge. I've seen it done here in Las Vegas by Carl Fischer on a
9' Baldwin. I was quit impressed.

Alan Meyer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Clark A Sprague" <clarks11628@juno.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 8:26 PM
Subject: Setting the plate


> List,  I have been working on my beloved Baldwin R for a long time now.
> I can only spend a couple hours a night on it, as my store job keeps me
> busy 8-10+ hours per day, but I hope to finish it in this lifetime (
> hopefully sometime this fall).
>         I am to the point of setting the plate, and tonight I got out my
> trusty dial calipers, and measured the dowels.  To my amazement, I got
> readings that were all over the place.  As much as .020 difference in the
> dowels of the same pair.  Is this normal?  Should I attempt to take them
> down, as I read in the article in the Journal reprints, or should I take
> them off and use the Baldwin Plate Suspension system, as also described
> in the Reprints?
>         I know that there is minimal crown in the old board, and one
> technician looked at it with me the other day, and said that he would
> take them all down the thickness of a penny, but no more than a nickel.
> I think I would like to be a bit more exacting than that! But then
> again............
>        There are no plate bosses on this one, the bottom surface of the
> plate is flat, and probably not very regular in thickness from one side
> of the hole to the other.  Could this explain why there are differences
> of dowel length in the same pair,  they just made sure that the plate
> rested evenly on all of them?  Or just not exacting in their methods back
> in 1943?
>         Opinions, advice all?
>
> Clark Sprague