rebuilding decisions

Mark Davidson mark.davidson@mindspring.com
Sun, 3 Oct 2004 08:50:31 -0400


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After searching for a baby grand on which to learn some more skills, I had 
the good fortune to obtain a 1925 Henry F. Miller for small $$.  (Ad said 
"needs tuning").

Not in good condition, obviously, but all the notes play and all the pieces 
are there, and it is clear after looking it over a bit that this was a high 
quality piano when new. Gorgeous mahogany underneath a mediocre refinishing 
job.

So now I have to make decisions about what to repair/replace.  Some things 
are obvious: needs a pinblock, and much of the felt is moth eaten.  Hammers 
have about 1cm long strike "points".  Tuning pins rusty.  Squeaky, flattened 
knuckles.

Less obvious (to me) are

bridges - hairline cracks near pins, worse on bass bridge.  Easiest would be 
to fill with epoxy, as has been discussed.  But I might learn more by 
recapping??  I'll get some photos.  Bass bridge has 9 monochords, 11 
bichords, 8 trichords (all wound).  All the rest is plain wire.

soundboard - haven't done any measuring yet.  No cracks visible, but it's 
covered with dirt and still the humid season here.  Crazed finish.  I 
suppose if it has no crown / downbearing and lots of cracks, the answer is 
obvious, but what if that's not the case?  There is a lot written on how to 
measure crown and downbearing, a lot less written on what to do with that 
information.

center pin bushings - seem to be in surprisingly good condition, not loose 
nor overly tight.

whippens - It's very complicated compared with modern ones I've seen.  These 
have some felts that need replacing, but also have silk cords that look OK. 
Photo attached.

One interesting design problem.  There are agraffes all the way to the top, 
and treble hammers are rubbing and hanging up on the plate in the high 
treble.  This limits how close you can get the strike point to the end of 
the string.



I don't really need to make a big profit on this piano, but would like to be 
able to recover my out of pocket costs when done.  It's primarily an 
educational exercise.

Thoughts?

-Mark




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