Brash Failure

[John Delacour]

At 4:13 pm -0500 19/8/06, Ron Nossaman wrote:

>At 9:00 pm +0100 19/8/06, alan forsyth wrote:
>
>>The worst case of this I have come across is Rud Ibach pianos of 
>>100 year old vintage and also an 1870 Broadwood. In these cases the 
>>actions were made from Cedar. Drill into the wood and it just 
>>crumbles to dust. Something I noticed as well is that the wood 
>>emitted a very strong coffee type smell.

>I've run into this with cedar too, usually shanks. Why would they 
>use cedar for shanks in the first place? Or is it really cedar, and 
>not chestnut? Chestnut, I think, would have been both more abundant, 
>and a better choice.

Cedar shanks are common on early pianos and it certainly is cedar, 
very easily distinguished from anything like chestnut.  Its the same 
stuff the best old pencils were made from, fragrant, a pinkish red 
and very light (0.38 g/cc).  For some reason cedar does seem 
particularly prone to this sort of deterioration and even when it's 
perfect it has not the strength and elasticity needed in the modern 
piano.  Some makers continued using it far too long whereas others 
switched quite early to rock maple, hornbeam, hickory etc.  There is 
a very fine dark brown wood a few makers used in the last 30 yrs or 
so of the 1800s, which I've never been able to identify.  I have 3 
uprights that have shanks made of this wood and they are perfect, but 
a colleague is about to send me a set of hammers for shank 
replacement because this same wood has become brittle for some reason.

I recognize well the unpleasant smell Alan refers to, which is 
something like the characteristic smell of the older Bechsteins, 
which again I have never had anyone identify.  And talking of 
Bechsteins, even the hornbeam of some of their earlier piano actions 
can become impossibly brittle even in our climate, with enough help 
from factory chimneys and smoking coal fires.

JD