square update

[Don Price]

To:  Alan, Farrell, Susan, Jon, John, Michael, J Patrick, Paul, Bill, and 
any others I may have missed.   Thanks for all your suggestions.  Even those 
who suggested  I "run".

The piano is a Behning square, #21122, made between 1880 and 1885 according 
to Pierce.

The piano is from the Molly Brown home in Denver, and was moved to a small 
museum in Brush, Colorado several years ago.   Having spent the last 100 
plus years in Colorado, the strings were relatively free of rust and 
corrosion, so I didn't run into any string breakage problems.   The middle 
section was close to 440, part of the high treble on the sharp side by 10 to 
15 cents, and the bass sharp by 10 to 20 cents.  So I tuned it to A440. 
Alan suggested I have sandbags or heavy cloth if  I needed to remove the 
damper rail.  I did remove the damper rail which made it much easier to 
identify the string being tuned.  AND NEXT TIME I'LL BE SURE TO HAVE THE 
HEAVY CLOTH!!
A couple of others suggested identifying and marking selected tuning pins 
with front rail punchings.  That was also quite helpful.


The job was not as bad as I anticipated.  I did not need to pull the action, 
so I am not sure how I would get into it.  I did remove the key slip and the 
front of the action has four screws angled into the bed.  I'm assuming the 
removal of these four screws would allow the action to be pulled.   The 
front rail has a recessed metal grip to use in pulling the action.

I found some of the mechanics to be interesting.   Like the circular "over" 
dampers which touch the top of one string 4 or 5 notes above the one being 
tuned.  The soft pedal, somewhat similar to some old uprights which had a 
band of felt which could be moved between the hammers and strings,  except 
on this square each note had its own individual felt.  It was quite 
effective.

After moving the damper lever flange rail, I found I could sit and tune most 
of the piano with my regular hammer and a #2 star tip.

Thanks for the help.

Don P