Austin-Weigh console bridge

[Eliot Lee]

Dear List,

	I just tuned a terrible Austin-Weigh console that had agraffes on
both ends of the string on what looked like a bridge.  The trouble was that
the agraffe bridge was on laminated maple and broken in many places, so
most of the middle range notes buzzed like crazy.  I had a hard time
leaving the piano knowing that it sounded just as bad when it was in tune
as out of tune.

	What about the downbearing on the agraffe bridge, I might get this
piano as a trade in so I was wondering whether it was worth just building a
conventional bridge after rescaling it. Is there some advantage in having
agraffes on both ends of the strings?  The bass bridge looked normal but
was shot also, with a  huge crack dispacing all the front bridge pins.  I
have never seen a good piano with such a horrible bridge.

	Does anyone have experience with Austin-weigh pianos having this
problem?

Thanks,

Eliot Lee