turning a Grand upright

[Dean May]

>>I have seem lyres shattered from this practice.  More importantly. I
suspect that the entire weight of the piano, being born at the center of the
keybed can do no good to the key regulation.
Don't do it!
Frank Emerson



Then why is it standard practice for Keyboard Carriage to use the lyre when
they are putting a 9 foot piano on a skid? 

As a PianoDisc installer who has cut into lots of keybeds and a mechanical
engineer with a modicum of structural strength comprehension I have every
confidence that those massively thick keybeds, often reinforced with another
traverse member attached underneath, can handle the weight. In fact, it was
at my PianoDisc training session in the early 90's where I first saw the
practice, it was standard procedure in their factory. 

I have seen one lyre break by doing this (thankfully it wasn't me that did
it). It was an 1890's with ornate lyre, not straight legs. And that mover
was not employing the brace that I showed in the previous post. No way it
would have broken with that brace. Using that brace makes the whole thing
unbelievably strong. There is absolutely no flexure of the lyre.

Even so, I would not do it on a lyre with curved ornate legs. Just use good
judgment. If the legs and lyre are rickety from the start you may have
problems no matter what you do. 


Dean

Dean May             cell 812.239.3359 

PianoRebuilders.com   812.235.5272 

Terre Haute IN  47802

 

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of pianoguru at cox.net
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2008 12:17 AM
To: Pianotech List
Cc: John Delacour
Subject: Re: turning a Grand upright

---- John Delacour <JD at Pianomaker.co.uk> wrote: 

> Put on legs 2 and 3 and the lyre ......
>When I was younger I would do this alone.  We nearly always do it 
> this way and have never had a lyre break