Action rebuilding question

[Brian Trout]

Hi Stephen,

Thank you for your response.

I've never seen an action like this one before, so I hope you'll forgive me
when I try to describe this thing, butchering the language, so to speak, as
well as the description.

Your observations about it possibly being a nice action to rebuild as
original may have merit.  Even as is, it's not bad.  And I suspect it's been
many years since anything was done.

Here goes.  The key sticks start out at the key front looking quite normal.
Looks like a rocker setup rather than a capstan setup on the back side of
the key.  So far so good.  Low friction, nice feel.  There really isn't much
of a wippen to speak of.  The jack appears to fasten to the key at the
rocker, and pivot away at the top (under the knuckle) for the escapement.
There's more to it in the middle of this jack for the escapement, but I
can't put my finger on the mechanics that trip it at the moment. Two springs
were notorious.  The first was on the key starting around the front of those
rockers and going back into the jacks.  I would guess this was their version
of a repetition spring.  The second was a little spring resembling the
letter "J" (laid on it's left side) coming out horizontally from a rail? and
having a little button on the curved end which acted as a jack stop, and
perhaps another function?.  I don't remember a lot of detail about the
backcheck setup, and I'm a little fuzzy on the exact jack setup.  It was
unlike anything I've ever seen before, and I wasn't able to 'play with it'
for long enough to get a good idea of how it all fit together.

How's that for a very butchered description?

The gentleman had some desire to do parts replacement due to the wood of the
action becoming more brittle and more prone to breakage.  But I know that
doesn't necessarily spell the death knoll for this action.

Again, I do thank you for your input.  The gentleman to who I'm referring is
not on the list, but I wondered if there might be those such as yourself who
have seen these before.

Actually, I've not seen a lot of european pianos.  I know there are some
around, but most of what I see are the typical American pianos with a rare
oddity such as a French or English birdcage thrown in every once in a while
to keep things interesting.  It was fascinating to see an action that was
built in about 1905 that had the look of something than might have been
built in about 1875.  I'm told that the European pianos retained the 'odd'
or 'non-standard' action types for about 30 years longer than the (what
we've come to know as) standard actions of today.

It's interesting.  I hope I'll get to see more.

Best wishes,

Brian Trout
Quarryville, PA
btrout@desupernet.net



>
> No -  better...
> if it is a Bluethner patent action it is worth rebuilding to original
> specs. They are wonderful to play. The rebuild and regulation are time
> consuming and a little tricky but once regulated they stay regulated for
> ever and a year. Unless of course he just has some other non-standard
> action, but I doubt it. Please describe in more detail.
>
> Stephen
>