Ibach Broken Plate& interesting bass set up

[John Delacour]

At 22:20 -0500 14/12/07, Erwinspiano at aol.com wrote:

>   This is a little 5 ft Rudy Ibach piano.  It has a nasty crack near 
>the open face pin block.  This is no. 83,000 ish. Mediocre piano but 
>cute case & interesting double overstrung bass section.  Any body 
>familiar with these & are broken paltes common with these?

My colleagues in London have just done one of these -- I did the 
hammers and the strings but didn't touch the piano itself, which they 
were very pleased with, I seem to recall.

The last Ibach I did that had a cracked metal frame was a 6-footer of 
about this age, and what I discovered was that the wrestplank was not 
properly mated with the frame (Am. 'plate') webbing.  Since there was 
a hollow under (at least one of) the screw holes, the webbing had 
been forced to bend as the screw was tightened and great stress was 
introduced.  Luckily I noticed the crack and was able to alert the 
customer before de-stringing, because when the tension came off the 
crack opened up right through.

I had the frame stitched
<http://www.locknstitch.com/Metal_Stitching.htm>

  by Metalock
<http://www.metalock.co.uk/castingrepairs.asp>

I'd bet the cause of your crack is the same.  There is no other 
obvious reason why the casting should break at that point, since 
there is no internal stress.  Provided you work down the plank and/or 
fill up to ensure close contact with the casting all along, there 
should be no further problem.

JD