I tuned a 6 1/2' Chickering today. It had been patched up at some time in the distant past, with new strings, pinblock, and hammers. Original dampers, and otherwise original action. A total basket case now, board shot and action worn clear out. I pulled the action at one point to clear rubbing adjacent hammers and found what's almost shown in the alleged photo. Sorry, my phone camera isn't exactly state of the art, nor is the operator. The finest set of resonating shank patches I've ever seen, with a hammer hanging job to match. The brass sleeved shank was the one that was the problem. The shank pieces were square cut and butted together inside the brass sleeve without benefit of glue to keep the hammer pointing in the right direction. The keys were numbered from 1 at C-8, to 88 at A-0, which I thought was fun. She said they got the piano so she and the kids could learn to play on it. I told her to be ready, because the piano is DOA, and the kids will start pointing that out far sooner than she would like. So start getting used to the idea of either rebuilding this one, which could make a terrific piano, or replacing it with something newer. I suppose we'll see. My last one was a Baldwin the movers had dropped off the ramp (she watched it happen), and broke off both front legs. "We'll fix it", they said, and spirited it away to the elves workshop where they applied some unidentified glue, and stuck the broken ends back together. There - fixed! The two broken legs I looked at indicated that they weren't, in fact, all that fixed, so I made her an estimate to submit to the moving company for somewhat more extensive repairs. They had moved with this company twice before with no problems at all, so she was pretty sure they would be cooperative in getting this over with. So again, I suppose we'll see. Sorry, no poor quality pictures of that one. Tomorrow, I go look at a Story & Clark grand in an estate sale for someone before I get to go out in the shop and start priming a plate. Man, the fun just never ends! Makes me wonder what all those poor souls out there with "real" jobs do for entertainment. <G> Ron N -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: hammer shank patches.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 72944 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20060901/a0b602e8/attachment-0001.jpg
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