something new every day

[Nichols]

At 11:52 PM 4/19/2004 -0500, you wrote:

>>Almost entertaining:
>>     Mason and Hamlin AA. During teardown came across two screws in the 
>> plate just south of the hitch pins for,uh....about F5 and C7 (ish) 
>> Y'know.... those. Anyway, they both act like the impact driver broke 
>> them. Spin, but won't come out. No amount of magnet/screw holder/blade 
>> under the edge.... nothing would pull them out. Oh well... they're 
>> busted.... they'll behave when we jerk the plate.  First thing to notice 
>> is that there's no hole in the board or post or anything where the 
>> screws are. Then, with the plate down in the rack... there's the nuts! 
>> Sure enough, there's nifty little nuts on the underside of the plate to 
>> hold these stubby little #18s in the plate. Turns out there's no beams 
>> below that tenor area, either. Yeah, the spider is there. One dorsal 
>> beam, and one angled cross brace to the bass.
>>Ya just never know, eh?
>>
>>Funny,
>>Guy
>
>I noticed something similar in the Walter grand. The only thing I could 
>come up with that made sense to me was that these were hoist points, 
>plugged with a bolt after the fact. I asked Mr Walters about it in a class 
>a couple of years ago, and he confirmed it. Hoist points. That might be 
>the case in the Mason too.
>
>Or maybe it's just there to annoy you...
>
>Ron N

Ron,
    Doubt the hoist point theory. Not the strongest place, and with the 
plate in the belly, no room around the bridges to get the nuts in place, or 
remove. Had to be secured before install, and pray they never loosen up? 
What a rattle that would be. All I can think of is that this particular 
piano, in the factory, was temporarily fitted with a mechanism that 
precluded the placement of the regular beams that would catch those screws. 
There was a channel roughed out of the keybed, also, but not under the rear 
of the keys, as in player mechanism. Pretty much just forward of the 
balance rail. No other visible mounting holes in the inside of the rim. 
Weird. Fun. Odd.  Like.... us, no? %^)>

Guy