DIY Ingenuity

[John Ross]

I saw a repair to make a piano operational, when the hammer flange was gone. 
The person had inserted lollipop sticks on each side of the hammer to guide 
it. They were attached to the hammer rail.
Another was pieces of thread tied to the bridle straps, and to the wire. A 
real pain to remove, when replacing the bridle/ action tapes.
Broken shank repaired with a popsicle stick and duct tape, as a splint.
Nails hammered in alongside the pins, hoping to make them tighter.
A piece of coathanger wire, tied on to a broken string, going through the 
drilled out hole on the tuning pin. This was an amateur tuner fix.
John M. Ross
Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada
jrpiano at win.eastlink.ca
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Boyce" <David at piano.plus.com>
To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 5:57 PM
Subject: DIY Ingenuity


>I tuned a 1930s Challen (long-gone English make) upright piano today. The 
>owner had used a small piece of card stuck to an action rail to compensate 
>for a broken bass damper spring by pusing the damper wire forward, and had 
>replaced a broken or missing jack spring with a very strong little piece of 
>spiral spring, which he couldn't remember where he got.
>
> Neither solution worked well, but both were better than nothing, and 
> showed ingenuity!  The proper solution, of course, was to call me!
>
> I'm not sure why, but I always find fitting a new damper spring rather 
> satisfying.
>
> Challen made a lot of small grands and there are loads of them around. 
> They were very solidly built, but none of them sound or feel great, in my 
> experience.  Some of their upright pianos were quite good though.
>
> Best,
>
> David Boyce