Broadwood Grand

[Roger C Hayden]

I have a friend in England who could send me boxcars of those early
Broadwood grands.  Frankly, they are not highly prized in the UK.  His
comment was due to light duty stability, and poor regulation at best in
the action.  I believe the cut-off point for quality in the Broadwood was
about 1900.  I have seen both pre and post 1900 Broadwoods here in N E
Penns.  Dramatically different.  The old would not hold its tune nor play
pleasantly.   The newer one, 1920's I think, was remarkably delightful
and stable.

Keep a nice shine on the Old Broadwood, but get a new piano for the
pleasure of playing.

Roger Hayden

On Tue, 12 Oct 1999 07:31:09 -0500 (CDT) Ron Nossaman
<nossaman@SOUTHWIND.NET> writes:
> >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
> 

Roger C. Hayden,  RPT
Clarks Summit, PA