Broadwood Grand

[Ron Nossaman]

>Hi folks,
>Have a customer with an 1886 Broadwood grand piano.
>It is straight strung with a cast iron plate.  Where the tuning pins go thru
>the plate the plate is threaded to accept the threads on the pins.
>My question is what tension level were these pianos originally tuned to?  A4
>= ? hertz.
>The customer wants to go ahead with new tuning pins.  Do away with the
>threads in the plate and make it conventially pinned.  If this is done can
>this plate take the tension of tuning the piano to A440?
>Thanks.
>Doug Mahard
>


Hi Doug,
The tension difference between A435, and 440 is about 1000lbs in a modern
grand without changing the string scaling. You'd have to measure the scale
in this one to really find out what you've got to work with. Sure, pianos
can be rescaled to minimize such problems, but that's looking a bit too far
ahead. The first question is why is the work being considered in the first
place? If any modifications are made to "modernize" the instrument, what
does the customer expect to get when it's done? I'd be concerned that he
will expect it to sound like a new, modern piano with just a restringing,
while leaving the look of something old, for the room decor. That's a
guaranteed losing proposition for you, your customer, and the piano. Then
there's the "historical artifact" preservation thing to consider, which is a
number one priority for a lot of folks. In any case, I think that before
modifications are made to any customer's piano, both the customer and the
tech should have a pretty clear (and very similar) idea of both the intent,
and the expected results.

 Ron N