Les Smith wrote: > On Sat, 15 Aug 1998, Leslie W Bartlett wrote: > > > Now another question, regarding a 1970 or so Chickering grand. > > Badly needs regulation, and probably could use some hammer juicing. But > > is it worth a rebuild?? In this question, consider the owner has two > > graduate degrees in music, one of them in keyboard. She got it as a high > > school grad. gift. But it doesn't give her much satisfaction these days. > > I think regulation will help a lot, but the piano itself isn't very > > powerful and sustain is quite poor. > > What would you tell her?????????/ > > How about the truth? ------------------------------------- We can only hope that one of these days Les will write what he truly thinks... He is right, of course. Especially when it comes to the advisability of rebuilding one of these pianos. It took only 28 years for this piano to reach the end of its road. Your rebuilding it won't extend that un-useful life by much. If this is the piano I think it is, there is very little in the scale, the soundboard, the rim, or in the main structure that warrants the investment. You can probably make the action functional. If necessary, you could replace it all with new action parts made of wood that was actually dry 'before' they got cut out. But...no matter what you do to the hammers, the tone is not going to get much better unless the soundboard is replaced. And replacing the soundboard in a piano of this type is one of those challenges I don't care to face again any time soon. Without going into the gory details, you will have to work out some method of removing the board that protects the unbelievably soft wood that was used in the rim. Despite your best efforts, you're going to pull at least part of the inner rim loose. And when you are through you will find that this rim is so acoustically floppy that it can't adequately support that nice new soundboard anyway. The tone will still be compromised. And no amount of added belly bracing is going to help all that much. If this sounds like I've been there and done that it's because I have. Please understand, I'm not exactly saying that I'd never do it again, but if I did I'd certainly charge my 'full' price. (Once is an education, twice is business!) Believe me, she could buy another new piano of similar ilk for somewhat less than that. Which may well have been the idea in the first place. We have finally met the disposable piano. And, if she is making the transition from a "keyboardist" to pianist, she really deserves a piano. Your time will be better spent helping her find a good piano. Regards, Del
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