Rebuilding Henry

[Will Truitt]

I think that Del and Ron Overs make an excellent point.  A lot of these old
Millers  were built like tanks (Dale's photo of the rim without the board in
is surely evidence of that).   But, as Dale pointed out, they were poorly
scaled both in string scaling and board design.  If you rebuild them with
original boards (as many have done, including me) the result is going to be
limited and disappointing.  I've seen a number of Millers with new boards in
them where the rebuilder essentially duplicated what the factory did 100
years ago.  Better, but still retaining the worst aspects of poor design.  

 

In this case, it could be argued that putting a new board in one of these
old Millers without redesigning the board, stringing scale, and as much else
as possible would be of questionable value.  You are still spending the same
amount of money (a lot) as you would if doing a quality piano such as a
Steinway or Mason & Hamlin and giving the customer what you know up front
from experience will be  a limited result. 

 

Rebuilders like Del, Dale, Terry, and Rons Nossaman and Overs have a wealth
of accumulated experience doing this sort of redesign work.  As such, they
can approach a prospective client and argue confidently that redesigning the
family no-name grand offers the best value in restoration when certain
fundamentals are good and they know from experience that they can get a good
result if proper design and quality workmanship are applied.  The customer
is going to have a high quality musical instrument when the piano is done.
And, as Del points out, if the finished piano knocks your socks off, then
you have a far more obvious and undeniable accomplishment in the ears of
your peers, as well as your own.  

 

For the same reasons, pianos like this offer a good place to cut your teeth
on this kind of redesign work.  These kinds of pianos are around, and can be
had for little to no money.  They offer a place where you can experiment and
have the opportunity to fail (and learn) with far less consequence than with
a customer's piano.   Better yet;  enlist the expertise of  one of these
talented pianomen,  work with them to rebuild a really improved piano, and
expand your own knowledge base exponentially in the process.  How could that
be a bad thing? 

 

How good can it be?  What are the limits?  This is a far more interesting
question to me on a piano like Dale's Henry F. Miller than its pedigreed
brethren.    

 

Will Truitt

 

 

 

From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of erwinspiano at aol.com
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 10:45 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: Rebuilding Henry

 




  Hi Will T, Del & Ron O.
  I've got the flu or I would have posted similarly to Dels remarks. A good
case, A good Plate....the rest is solid piano designing....Thanks Del...Took
the words out of my mouth.

   WIll More later about that. I always like to reserve final judgement till
the piano is highly detailed & voiced. I will report back on it. 
   All my colleagues are very fussy Tonal -philes......RIght?
    Dale Erwin

Del and all,

 

I totally concur with Del's post. You can rebuild an S&S D and do remarkable
things with it, but the performance characteristics will always be credited
to the original manufacturer, in spite of numerous enhancement which might
have been undertaken.

 

The world of reputations and the age of spin doctors is so full of smoke and
mirrors.

 

Good work Dale, BTW.

 

Ron O.

 

In my experience it is possible to make a silk purse out of most anything.
In the roughly three decades I've been doing this type of work I've
encountered only a very few pianos that were really unworkable. If the plate
is more-or-less conventional and the rim is decently built you have the
basis for a good piano. The basic principles are the same for all pianos --
regardless of original manufacture.

 

Until you get known for doing this type of work it is useful to have an
example of your work around for people to look at, play and listen to. Don't
bother with Steinway, M&H, etc. No matter that you've been able to make it
sound better than its makers ever dreamed possible you'll be stuck with the
fact that it is a "top name" piano and it's supposed to sound good. Find
yourself one of those old Henry's or a Kimball or something and go to it.
Everyone knows these pianos are supposed to sound poorly so when one ends up
sounding better than anything else around it has to be a credit to your work
and the redesign. When it's finished start having recitals on the thing.
Invite folks in to play it who aren't in the market for anything. Do
whatever -- just get the word out there.

 

Eventually you can consider selling the thing. But only after the word has
gotten around and folks are bringing you more work than you can handle.

 

Del

 

 

-- 

OVERS PIANOS - SYDNEY

   Grand Piano Manufacturers
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Web http://overspianos.com.au <http://overspianos.com.au/> 

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