Restoring Collard & Collard Grand

[Peter Joris]

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Dave

 

It is strait strung, it has a plate and reaches from A0 to A7, so 7 8va, has
normal pins

I don't know if it is strung very heavily but european wire sizes in the
plain strings are ranging from the bass break size 19,5 (US 19) to 14 (US
13,5) in the high treble

 

Kind regards,

Peter Joris

 

  _____  

From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Dave Doremus
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 03:28
To: Pianotech
Subject: Re: Restoring Collard & Collard Grand

 

A few quick thoughts, after a long day, if I goof please let me know......

 

 

 

On 3/3/05, Peter Joris said:

 

 

Currently I am restoring a Collard & Collard Grand Serial: 16016 this should
date between 1830 and 1840 I think.

 

Does anything about it make you think it is this early besides the number?
Is it staight strung, no plate (gap spacers instead), 6 1/2 8va range,
square pins, etc? I'd suspect sight unseen that it is actually much newer,
very unusual to see one that old.

 

 

Im looking for information about what kind of strings to use for the
restinging, what felt to use for refelting the hammers etc.

 

If it really is that old, the hammers were probably a combination of felt
and leather layers. Rose C wire might work. If newer consider puresound, I
dont know of any other softer wire for victorian pianos. There is a co. in
France that will recover old moldings, Fletcher and Newman used to, but I
think they are out of the business.

 

 

It was tuned to A440 and it holds very well.


If it really is that old 440 is probably way high.

 

 

I am thinking of a rescale, so it can be tuned at A440 afterwards with a
lower tension, doess anybody has experience with this?

 

 

If it is a later instrument (1880s?), it was probably tuned higher than 440,
strung fairly heavy, and actually wants a higher tension to sound decent. If
you lower tension you will loose tone. If it is from the 30's you want to
think about tuning at 425 or 430 at the highest.


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