Chickering Grand Features

[Farrell]

I didn't look real close at the wippens - they are new. They are the model that has the silk strings that hold the end of the wippen springs. It seemed as though things would regulate reasonably well. She needs key leveling, clean up letoff and drop, and she has a mile of aftertouch. I didn't have my gram weights with me, but the action seemed a bit heavy.

I hadn't noticed the left-handed opening piano - I see that now. It looks like a modernish piano - I'll bet the picture is just inside-out.

Antique wood. Yeah, what a hoot. I guess that's why he didn't replace the soundboard, yet charged her enough for soundboard replacement. You should'a seen the underneath of that soundboard - looked like ground zero in southern Manhattan. Cracks, bulges, goo oozing out of cracks, holes, etc., etc. Well, whatever....

Terry Farrell
  ----- Original Message ----- 

  In a message dated 7/13/2007 4:40:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time, mfarrel2 at tampabay.rr.com writes:
    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 
  Terry, how was the action? Those wippens from that age can be bears - nothing modern fits. I had to make a couple of jacks and repetition levers to replace the mouse-chewed ones on a Chickering which I think was from about 1890. Quite a pain, so don't tell me if there was something I could have bought. 

  I was slightly puzzled/mildly amused at Amadeus's choice of a left-handed piano to represent their business (top left picture of the site; the lid appears to open on the bass side. I suppose it's like Paul McCartney's left-handed guitar). 

  And here's something I didn't know -
   Antique wood carries sound much better, and lasts longer because of the 50-80 year aging process, unavailable today.  The quality of metalwork for steel and copper-wound strings, in contrast, is much better today than it used to be 100 years ago.  That's why restored antique pianos sound so much better than new pianos and last far longer.

  Bob D.
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