---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment Gordon, I thought I'd share my Packard experience. Back in my piano moving days a couple of decades ago, I was moving one of these beasts. It was quite heavy and rather unwieldy, to put it mildly. I had no help that day, and it got away from me on the lift gate of the truck (in the up position). It toppled 5 feet to the ground onto it's back. In a very shaky, quite adrenalized state, I got it upright and on the dolly again, and when it got to its destination, it played as though nothing at all had happened to it. Further examination revealed that nothing did! They were strong, for sure. Great playing pianos~ Dave Stahl In a message dated 10/31/2005 7:48:38 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, lclgcnp@yahoo.com writes: Had to smash up a 1920's Packard upright, today, one of the best-playing, best sounding pianos I've ever seen. I felt bad about it, but it was in the way and had terrible case and bridge damage due to some moron parking it beneath a dripping/spraying air conditioner. Still, the sound was magnificent. That it did not die in vain, I relate the following: It had a heavy pressure bar. The plate was almost like steel. Members that would have broken with a claw hammer on most pianos took 10 whacks with a full sized sledge before they split ( Ugh! ) The back posts and blocks were all of 5, 3/4" plys of mahogany and rock maple. The soundboard was 3/8" thick at the upper edge, and 5/16" thick at the lower edge, of wonderfully straight, tight-grain spruce with about 40 lines per inch. It had a dozen ribs that were very stout: the largest being 1-1/4" wide and 7/8" thick. These also appeared to be radially cut, so the belly was very solid, with both rib and compression crowning, as far as I could tell. The treble bridge had a vertically laminated root and was doweled into the board every 4 inches. The bass bridge was stright, on a small shelf. They keys were very short, to minimalize inertia. The piano was very wide and 52" tall, to allow shorter action parts for better response, while maintaining board size and string length. Considering the amount of water that obviously had sprayed on to it, most pianos would have been completely destroyed. But this one sounded and played wonderfully, to my amazement. Peace, G P.S. Oh yes! It also said "Founded 1871", so my guess is that the Packard family learned it's stuff making pianos before it started making automobiles. ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/c5/ef/95/bb/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
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