1879 Steinway A

[Richard Brekne]

Thanks one and all for the suggestions.

As it turned out, I got to thinking and looking and pondering and ended 
up just filing the front (hammer end) of  flange profile back enough so 
that I could get the centerpins lined up with the old center pin line. 
This was a bit time consuming, but it got done in about 3 hours. It 
required a bit extra in terms of shank traveling and making sure the 
centerpin heights were even... but not so much extra in the end.

This brought back the knuckles so that they were just 1.5 behind the old 
ones, and that turned out to work really well with the jacks. The jacks 
were too far back relative to the knuckles to begin with, as I said in 
my first post.  I wont know until I start regulating just how off 90 
degrees the jack will be from the knuckle... but it looked pretty good 
on the bench.

I wanted to go with a 17mm  knuckles to center to accommodate a  number 
6 SW curve... just under mid medium.  Thats about as light a hammer as I 
could ask for these days. The old set weighed in at  3/4 lows.... really 
light.  Samples were amazingly enough dead on the Stanwood curve.  I 
will be maintaining the same BW, and  keep the existing whippen assist 
springs at their same basic tensions.

Customer just doesnt have enough money for new whippens.

I'll take some pics as I get further along.   The keys and whippens are 
dated 1879.  The instrument is in really quite good condition for being 
so old. '

Thanks again one an all for the many good points and thoughts.


RicB