Decker Bros. Upright

[Greg Newell]

Terry,
    I've gotten myself into many a bind in situations like this one. I suggest
that you give the customer a thorough and complete evaluation of the entire
piano and what you see that needs attention and ask her what SHE thinks should
be done with it. True, we are the professionals, but then ... it's her money! I
like for the customer, in situations like this, to decide the course of action.
Then it doesn't as easily come back to bite your backside.

Greg

Terry Beckingham wrote:

> Hi Gang,
>
> I have a customer who just inherited an old Decker Bros. upright serial no.
> 12557. According to Pierce Atlas it was built between 1875 and 1880. It is
> in surprisingly good condition. It is about 35-40 cents flat.
> Can anyone tell me if it was designed to be tuned at A435 or A440?
>
> When I opened up the piano today, I immediately noticed that about half of
> the iron wound bass strings had been replaced with newer copper wound
> strings. This set off alarm bells in my head. I set my RCT for no overpull
> and started to raise the pitch to A440. I only got as far as G#1, a single
> wound unison and the string broke. I quit right there. About half of the
> bass strings up from there had been replaced and half were originals. It
> appears that all of the unwound music wire is original, but I wasn't
> willing to take the chance of having more strings break.
>
> I haven't spoken to the customer yet (she was at work), but I don't know
> how to proceed. She just spent several hundred dollars moving this
> instrument up from her parents home in the south. I know she will want me
> to attempt some sort of repairs. At a bare minimum, I think it should be
> restrung complete with new bass strings and repinned.  Torque on the few
> pins that I checked is only 30-50 inch pounds. I temporarily replaced the
> broken string with a universal bass string. I only turned out the pin 1
> turn, but it was too loose to hold. I removed it to replace it with a
> larger pin. Only problem was that the original pin was a 2/0 only 2 inches
> long. The new 3/0 pin bottomed out in the hole.
>
> I didn't check the board for crown or the bridges for bearing. The board
> has 3 long cracks, but no rib separation as yet. There are no cracks at all
> in any of the 3 bridges. This piano has two bass bridges. The lower one for
> the single unisons is placed as normal, but the bridge for the double
> unisons is at almost a right angle from the other  bass bridge.
>
> The piano has original hammers and keytops which are in fairly good
> condition. There are no broken parts and the action isn't even all that
> badly out of regulation. I understand that the piano was fairly well
> maintained until about 5 years ago.
>
> Any suggestions? I should probably just walk away from it, but then I will
> have an unhappy customer. I'm the only person for several hundred miles
> around who does any of this type of work.
>
> Thanks
>
> Terry Beckingham

--
Greg Newell
Greg's Piano Forté
12970 Harlon Ave.
Lakewood, Ohio 44107
216-226-3791
mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net