Broadwood Pics

[Farrell]

Interesting. Sounds like you are doing exactly the same scope of work on yours, as I am on mine. My Woodward & Brown has what sounds to be a similar "...small wooden support  just front of the bridge coupling the soundboard to the pin block.  This extends down to the keybed area and to the back wall of the instrument." My support is just a 1/2" x 1/2" (or so) stick that goes from the rear (pinblock side) edge (cast iron strip on bottom of board) of the soundboard on about a 60 degree angle to the base of the back wall in the action cavity. I suspect its function is to simply give the back edge of the soundboard some support.

I refurbished both bridges (mine has a separate bass bridge set to the right of the long bridge) by removing all pins, planing down to just remove string indents and setting new pins in epoxy (also had to recap the area on the long bridge where the tight bend is at because it was broken badly and original pinning was all screwy - wow, talk about some close quarters - I hope my strings are thin enough to fit between the bridge pins!). After and during bridge refurbishing I set the plate in and worked on plate height to get some reasonable down-bearing. It seemed I would set plate position/height and bearing would be OK here and there, but not over yonder. Then I realized I did not have my little soundboard edge support stick installed. I put that in and observed the soundboard going up and down quite easily. I also noticed that because the support was located nearest the tight bend in the bridge, pushing up with the support stick would affect downbearing more in that area than elsewhere. I found that a combination of good plate height and support position gave me acceptable downbearing everywhere. I figured I had better keep downbearing on the light side on an old flimsy board like this one has. I have next to nothing on the bass bridge, very little on the tenor, and I have it increasing through the bend and into the upper treble. I hope this works!

What are your thoughts on downbearing on an old beastie? Where are you going to go for hammers? I am planning on having Ronsen make me a set. I inquired with Abel a while back and my recollection is that they said they would not recover square hammers.

Now what are you going to do with the pinblock? Mine is simple because the plate covers the pinblock - I have already set pinblock plugs in epoxy. That is my preferred pinblock treatment when I am not replacing. That would really give a weird look to your piano - it would be like 140 of those little eyes with a circle around them - hmmmm, maybe a conversation piece? I assume you are not considering carving that little rascal out of the case! You could always plug and lay a new veneer over the block - but you would loose all that pretty lettering (A # F G #, etc.) - but it did seem as though you had a lot of cracking on the top veneer. What do you plan on doing with the forward string termination ?bridges? (?what do you call them?) - near the tuning pins? Replace? Refurbish? Repin? Leave the heck alone because who cares - they are never going to play the darn thing - it wouldn't make any difference anyway? My piano, of course, has all this cast into the plate.

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Brekne" <Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 10:48 AM
Subject: Re: Broadwood Pics


> Hey Terry:
> 
> Yes this is a bit of a project. I had thought about pulling out this panel and putting in a new, but I let myself get talked into just shimming it. I still am unsure of just what kind of crown these are expected to have. The soundboard has gotten reallllly scraped up, tho the lighting in the pictures make it look worse then it really looks. Still its pretty marked up. No other plate or iron anywhere
> except a small wooden support  just front of the bridge coupleing the soundboard to the pin block.  This extends down to the keybed area and to the back wall of the instrument. I am not sure whether the builders were thinking acoustics or just plain structural strength in placeing this there.
> 
> I got a kick out of the way they "finished" off the soundboard under the plate. They didnt bother to make it cover the entire area towards the back right side. No biggie really as a large part of this is area underneath is a solid  six inches thick block of wood. But still...
> 
> Nothing over the pinblock.
> 
> This gets the SB shimmed and made beautiful to look at :), completly refurbished action, all new leathers and felts and re-felted hammers... the works... refurbished back action..., the key bed has a pair of ugly cracks in it I have to fill up. And the whole case will be French Polished as best as I can manage it.
> 
> The UiB wants to take it into use this fall along side of the newly aquired Hafner I mentioned the other day. Great fun, lots of work.
> 
> RicB
> 
> Farrell wrote:
> 
> > Hi Richard. Thanks for the show. Quite a project! The square I'm doing in my shop looks like a breeze now! What on earth happened to the soundboard? Someone trying to carve their initials in it or something? Was there any plate structures other than the massive hitch pin plate shown in the pictures? Anything over the pinblock? Any struts going from pinblock area to hitch pin plate? Looks like fun.
> >
> > Terry Farrell
> >
> > -
> >
> > > To anyone interested, I have some pictures of the Broadwood square I am
> > > rebuilding on my webspace at the following addresses.
> > >
> > >
> 
> --
> Richard Brekne
> RPT, N.P.T.F.
> Bergen, Norway
> mailto:Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no
> 
> 
>