A couple of things spring to mind. The plate may not be a plate as such but several braces bolted together and to the beams with nose bolts, possibly set into the front of the stretcher above the tuning pins. After years of compression the whole thing may be very difficult to get apart and cast iron is brittle. DAMHIK. The soundboard is probably ribbed differently, the scale wont make a lot of sense in modern terms, the action is English style, no rep lever, and needs a shallow dip, a whisper of lost motion, and no change in hammer weight. Dampers likely screw into the underlevers and must be handled carefully, they may have leather or parchment hinges that also need careful handling. Abel can recover hammer moldings and do part repairs if needed. My approach to these, colored by my upbringing with the harpsichord and fortepiano tribe, is to keep everything as original as possible. In fact, I have twice had great success reversing "improvements" by well intentioned but misguided, or unwilling to think outside the box, modern piano technicians. In my experience, Collards are good instruments for their time, better than the Broadwoods and Kirkmans. If you work on it, let it tell you how it wants to be set up, dont try to force it into modern piano mode, and the result will be satisfactory. Some of the English folks may see more of these and have different opinions. Hope this helps, --Dave New Orleans David Love wrote: > I guess I should have been more specific. I was wondering about any > particular plate anomalies or weaknesses, mortising issues the might create > problems with teardown, things like that. It's a project I'm debating about > getting involved in because of the age and limitations of the instrument. I > don't see many of these of this age. > >
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