Bridge repair

[Helen Pengelly]

Hi Richard
              I was curious about how exactly you installed the wire. Did
you
let down the tension of all the strings across the board or just  the bass
section?
Also what gauge string did you use?
John Pengelly

----------
> From: Richard Moody <remoody@easnet.net>
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Re: Bridge repair
> Date: April 25, 1998 10:13 AM
> 
> Hi Joe
> 	I just did that to a bass bridge in a piano I own.  Meissner  52"
> upright. This is because there was so much negative bearing, the bridge
> cap (in sections) was pulled off (after being glued down with CA).  
Don't
> ask why I did not determine bearing before I did ANY bridge repair. (So I
> could call myself idiot)  Just don't do it yourself.  Anyhoo, what could
> be an instant fix but to run a piece of piano wire behind the front
bridge
> pins.  I know, this is blasphemy to the idea of the relation of the
string
> to the bridge pin and the cut, and besides the string would then ride up
> on the B pin and beat. 
> 	But soon the pudding was proofed.  I got an astonishing increase in
> sustain time of some of the crudiest sounding bass strings outside a
> square piano. Other strings sound OK, but I believe this to be a fault in
> the bass scaling. 
> I had not heard of this procedure, so thought I had dreamed it up.  I did
> not put a 
> wire behind the back pins. 
> 	Now all I have to do is cut out a section of the wire and see if the
> difference is audible. 
> ----------
> > From: Joe & Penny Goss <imatunr@primenet.com>
> > To: pianotech@ptg.org
> > Subject: Bridge repair
> > Date: Friday, April 24, 1998 10:32 PM
> > 
> > List,
> > today I encountered a repair on an upright piano that has me stumped as
> to
> > its quality and or correctness.
> > 
> > The repair looks to be about 50 years old and the piano about 75 years
> > young.
> > The repair. I believe was intended to add down bearing and was
> accomplished
> > by placing piano wire (  (  16 gage ? could not measure ) long the
> bridge
> > pins.
> > 
> > In the bass, the string was placed close to the speaking length bridge
> pins
> > but  the plain wire strings had the added string close to the tail
> bridge
> > pins. this was done maybe to avoid different speaking lengths of the
> plain
> > wires as the longest plain wire strings had short pieces of wire placed
> > along the speaking length alla the bass strings.
> > 
> > Has anyone seen such a repair??  Any thoughts??
> > This is a 'store' piano of little value.
> > My biggest concern I think is pitch stability, as when seating the
> strings,
> > as is my custom, the strings moved about 1/8" and I'm thinkin'' that
> they
> > will return to rest high on the bridge pins where they were.
> > Joe
> > You know your on the level if your bubble is in the middle.