Farrell wrote: > 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. Hmmm sounds pretty similiar alright. And I suspect you are right about the support bit... but I will let you know if the boys at Broadwood say anything about this. > > 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! I tend to aggree about the conservative downbearing concern. But I am not sure what "support" you are refering to here. Is this the same one as mentioned in the first paragraph ? In mine its glued in place tight and it appears as if it cant go anywhere else if I do loosen and remove it. I cant adjust it in any fashion unless I reconfigure it in some sense. You can actually spot mine in picture P2040034 / 35 / and 37. > > 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. Well, doesnt look like there was ever meant to be much crown... tho I dont know this to be true. The panel was basically flat when I got it... and there was not really any negative bearing... strings just barely touching the bridge... but the back side of the bridge along the lower tenor and down through the bass has pulled away from the soundboard and you can see about a 1 - 1.5 mm gap between it and the SB. All in all tho... I think the bare neccessities of life will do in this case, lacking any firm advice from elsewhere. Buttons and screws from the underside into the bridge are inaccessable in this area and that poses a problem. I should really just remove the entire panel and put it all back together nice and tight before replacing it I suppose. Alternatively I could bore through the bridge in a few places and use the old piano wire and tuning pin trick to pull the thing together again... but then I still have the loose buttons /screws on the underside... Fun eh ?. Removeing the panel looks doable on the right side, but over on the left side its kind of buried into the case... sorta like the way some grand makers bury the pinblocks into the case if you get my meaning. Take a look at picture 35 and you will see what I mean. > 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 > > - Pinblock will be preserved as is, with carefull filling of cracks with epoxy. I wont fill in the tuning pin holes as the pins are very tapered and there is lots of room at the bottom of the coils to go farther into the block. I will finish with shellack. Tuning pin side termination is wood and pinned and this all looks pretty good so I will just clean it up and coat it. Thanks muchly for all the good thoughts, ideas, and words of your experience. Woodward & Brown eh ?? That sounds familiar.... Thanks again Terry Cheers ! RicB -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. Bergen, Norway mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html
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