Schimmel Upright

[Richard Brekne]

Hi list

Was in to visit the local Schimmel dealer today... a good friend and
fine technician. He had a brand new Schimmel down in his basement
shop location that caught my eye... and I asked him what was the
problem with it. Turns out that Schimmel has had a production
problem that resulted unwound strings getting nicked at the becket
ending in an inordinate amount of string breakage. The number of
pianos affected is supposed to be small and by all appearances
Schimmel is doing an exemplary job of seeing to it these instruments
are repaired.

As long as this was on its back and strings were all loosened, many
already removed and the bridge visible for inspection I decided to
take a look and see how this 3 - 4 month old piano shaped up. For
edification its been through one dry season after sale and we
haven't really gotten fully into the summer yet, and this bridge has
no form of lubricant painted on it....looked like it had no lacquer
either for that matter...I can find out for sure if anyone wants to
know.

The treble bridge showed indentations both for and aft of the center
of the bridge, virturally of same length and depth (eyeballing it
mind you). There was about a 3 mm area in the center of the bridge
that had no indentation visible yet. Again eyeballing it I would
guess the depth was about 0.1 - 0.2 mm and this depth looked quite
uniform until just before the indentation ended near bridge center.
It was remarkable that this was the case nearly the whole length of
the bridge. That last fact made me think...hmmm there is a point to
Ron N's thoughts on the bridge seating question. though the rest of
the picture didnt quite add 100 % up with that. I suppose it would
be interesting to check the string deflection angle over the whole
length of this bridge.

The bass Bridge showed a different picture. This bridge had a rather
short and curved apron. The apron was just under 3 inches at its
widest tapering abruptly to nothing trebleside, and more gradually
bass side. Here the indentation was present only fore of bridge
center. No marking at all from just fore of center bridge to the
hitch pin side bridge pin. Again it was very uniform in depth and
length over the whole of the length bass bridge. I was reminded a
bit of this thread going on bass bridge roll, and wondered too how
this would be explained with Ron N's idea relating to the string
seating question.

Any ways... for those of you who are milling over these kinds of
ideas in your mind.. just thought this would be food for further...
milling... :)

Would love to hear any comments on the matter.

--
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway
mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no