very strange tuning mechanism

[CHARLES BECKER]

Being a tech in the Boston area avails me to half a dozen or so Screw Stringers.  They are very stable instruments, very easy to tune once you get a rhythm going .  They were designed for A 435 but 440 is no problem.  The one difficulty is when a string breaks.  Replacing strings is not too easy. 

If you are lucky the tuning hammer which looks like a T-hammer  will be hanging in a holder inside the piano on the bass side. A few of my customers pianos have handy instructions attached to the tool holder.  One instruction is to always set the note from flat.  I've heard that the original  screw stringer tuning tool is more valuable than the pianos they came with.  Schaff sells a Mason and Hamlin  wrench no. 19.  I'm sure that tool is not more valuable than the piano  but it does double as a let-off regulating tool in some grands.

Any ideas to make string changing less of a chore would be appreciated.


  The Mason & Hamlin uprights had a system called the "screw stringer" system will sounds very close to what you are describing. Unusual, but stable system.
  Tom Servinsky
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Gregor _ 
    To: pianotech at ptg.org 
    Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 5:33 AM
    Subject: very strange tuning mechanism


    in some old pianos (very seldom) we find very strange mechanisms for tuning, i.e. without tuning pins. Instead of the pins there are screws. The function is like the fine tuning screws of violins. Did you ever see such mechanisms? I saw 2 of them in the last 10 years: one Crasselt & Raehse and one Gebr. Meusel, Hamburg. Have you ever heard of Meusel? I could find nothing with Google and my Lexikon Of German Pianomakers says nothing, too. And in a book I read about Emil Lämmerhirt, Berlin, who constructed pianos with a "Patentschraubenstimmung" (patent screw tuning).

    I regret that I had no camera to make pictures of these historic interesting instruments. Has anybody else fotos of these mechanisms? At least that Crasselt & Raehse had a very stable tuning. I came back after 3 years and the tuning was still fine.

    Gregor


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