I inspected a 1902 Chickering grand the other day - about 6'6" or so. It recently had a "complete belly job" and new action parts at Amadeus Piano in NJ. http://amadeuspianos.com/projecta.htm scroll down about half-way to "Chickering Grand Piano Restored and Refinished for our customers in Florida". I'll be doing some action and damper regulation and tuning - I'm sure all those nice new bass tricords will be a pleasure. Very pretty instrument. But of course, I couldn't help but nose around the belly a bit. The web site characterizes the piano's sound as "back to original" and that it has "tremendous sound with plenty of power and beautiful, colorful tone." I would describe the tone as dull, weak, and lifeless. The piano is quiet as a mouse and sustain at C7 is less than one second and at C6 about three seconds. Sucker's dead as a doornail. Treble and bass bridges are cracked up at bridge pins on this "complete belly job" - interesting. Anyway, it had some curious features. Full plate with a full tuning field plate web - but with that Chickering contoured tuning pin area. Wow! The piano has a sawn rim (not laminated) and is very heavily braced underneath (nice!). It also has wooden action brackets. Before I looked up the age, I thought it had to be 1880s or so with the sawn rim and wooden action brackets - but then the cast iron tuning pin field web suggested post-1900. I'm surprised that Chickering had wooden action brackets in 1902. And the bass and treble hammer shanks and wippens are all angled outward - YIKES! - what's that all about? Interesting Chickering - as they often are. Terry Farrell Farrell Piano www.farrellpiano.com terry at farrellpiano.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20070713/fa791020/attachment-0001.html
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