class rebuild work

[Bob Hull]

Is this a trend in Chickering rebuilds?
I just tuned a 1903 8' Chickering.  This new customer
just moved here from Conneticut.  The piano had been
"rebuilt" several years ago and I found tuning pins
from 2's to 6's.  Some of these were barely had enough
torque to hold.  The pin block was one that was made
in four sections.  The movers scuffed and scratched
the piano quite a bit.  We did a lot of finish repair
on top of a refinishing job that was bad to start
with. Fancy legs, scroll work on music shelf...

It could be a great piano if they would turn loose and
let us do a real rebuild on it, but it's not going to
happen.  Oh, well, still plenty of other fish to fry.

Bob Hull

--- Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net> wrote:

> 
> 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
> 


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