Ann said: "Secondly, museums generally have a mandate to preserve and conserve, so any restoration must keep this in mind. They need education and advice to help them decide what the options and what should be done. This is probably not a job for the standard rebuild shop. Remember that the goal should probably not be to turn it into something like sounds and plays like a 20th - 21st century piano. Museum instruments are not the place for replacing authentic actions and the like. You can read Barclay's publication online now, giving guidelines for the Care of Musical Instruments in Museums: http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/euchmi/cimcim/iht/index.html " Ann, Unfortunately, you are right about the mandates, which in my opinion are simply Burial Instructions. This sort of thing is ludicrous! Pianos were meant to be played/ heard/loved/ enjoyed. Not to continue on in some dusty Museum where all they are good for is to give a cursory glance at. Most of those instruments are never given any care except to dust them and have people OOO and Ahhhh at them! Sheesh! What a waste~! You statement about "...standard rebuild shop" is so untrue! Most, GOOD rebuilding facilities are more than capable of doing anything necessary to "preserve" pianos of the "museum importance"! I know my shop can and has done such work. I suspect that Ron and Del and many more that can be named, have done such work in their careers. Your aloof attitude is really unwarranted and quite annoying, IMHO. BTW, the instrument, in question, is an 8' Chickering. Big deal. There were hundreds of them made and still exist in various forms of disrepair. Are they worthy of someone's efforts to bring them back to life? Yes! Unfortunately, the world has forgotten what those instruments really sounded like and reject them as being inferior because they are not Glassy, Crystaline, Powerful, Earshattering PSO like today's lot! The Brown action was a substandard action that even Chickering disliked. He used it reluctantly, IMO. Even in restored condition they are less than stellar. Your insinuated "sneer" about me replaccing the action, was unwarranted, as well. The wood had gone south. It was beyond repairing, in any form. Do I still have the parts? Yes, if you want them you can have them for some other mouldy Museum Piece. No Regards, Joe Joe Garrett, R.P.T. Captain of the Tool Police Squares R I -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20110104/0c08574b/attachment.htm>
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