Ran into an action today that I will be replacing hammers on and doing some basic touchweight evening and the action was rather rare so I thought I would jot down a few lines, tho I havent had a chance to really inspect it closely. Of note was the capstan/whippen coupling. Here was a typical rocker lever, but where the capstan would usually be was a center pin. From the whippen was a pinned post with a cashmir bushed push on connector that coupled the key to the whippen. Also there were 88 assist springs, all very strong. Rather large hammers, tho way too mushy and worn, very little leading except up at the top where there was a good deal of back leading and extremely light touch even tho the action was very poorly regulated. Keyframe had no glide bolts and balance pin rail was a 5 ply vertical laminant. Outside on each side looked like fir about 5 mm thick, then two layers of birch I believe perhaps 2 cm thick , then a very thin ply fir again in the middle .... maybe 3 mm. The back rail was similiar but had a couple more plys with the middle section being a 2 cm thick peice of the birch sided by two peices of thin fir. Grain went lengthwise. Front rail looked like the fir again...same grain orientation but no plys. Coupling peices were all in the fir with the grain going perpendicular to the rails. Tho the frame had quite a bit of flex to it when you lifted it, it was dead flat on the key bed and it didnt look like there had been anything done with the frame for 30 -40 years. Its one of two locally made grand pianos. Jacob Knudsen. No serial number but I can find out when it was made. Probably around 1950. Looks to be about 250 long, big but not quite a full concert length. I'll get to check out the action closer in the next couple days when I get it placed in my shop Cheers RicB -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. UiB, Bergen, Norway mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html
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