[pianotech] Chickering's splayed actions...Why?

[William Truitt]

One thing that is going unspoken by those participating in the discussion
here is that what we have been talking about are the Boston Chickerings, the
Aeolian and Baldwin Chickerings were different animals.  That still covers a
pretty large chunk of time, from 1823 when Jonas started up, until (what?)
the nineteen-teens when Aeolian bought them.  Most of what we see is from
the mid 1880's to about 1920.  I don't know much about the internal history
of the company, but I would guess that Old Jonas had gone on to his greater
glory by then, and that someone else (or more than one person) was doing
their R & D and implementing these changes into production.  And doing this
within a healthy sized company - Chickering was the largest maker for a
period of time during the 19th century.

Anyone who has a number of Chickerings under their belt (as most East Coast
rebuilders do), can tell you that the quality of workmanship was variable.
The things they made more difficult for us to do as rebuilders also didn't
make them easy to do well in the factory, although they at least had the
advantage of production methodologies over us.  

They can also tell you that the success of the scale designs varied widely.
Some (particularly the larger instruments) were wonderful pianos, and others
were barking dogs. One thing you see in too many of these instruments are
very short bridges, which gave a flabby, gutless tone in the tenor and low
treble.  A flawed piano, but still with seductive charms.

I do wonder if Jonas cast a large shadow from the past.  Even with all of
those design changes flying about, the Chickerings from 1890 to 1920 seem to
be looking backwards for their tonal palette and engineering aesthetic.
Unnecessary complexity of design was going by the wayside for so many pianos
from this era, but not Chickering.   

Will Truitt 

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Sunday, August 09, 2009 1:10 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Chickering's splayed actions...Why?

jim ialeggio wrote:
> 
>     I like Marcel's take on the straight keys. 
> 
> The quarter grand's keys are aggressively angled with only a single 
> bend, so the back of the key doesn't end up parallel to the front of the 
> keys...thus ruining yet another perfectly good theory....I personally 
> have quite a fine collection of slightly used, perfectly good 
> theories...any takers? 
> 
> Which models have straight keys?

I don't know that any do. I tend not to retain details like 
that, and was willing to take Marcel's word for it.


>     Where did the money come from?
>     Ron N
> 
> 
>  I'll say! I can't for the life of me figure how a production line could 
> run with these designs.

You got me. How many new plate patterns were made through 
their history? How many rim presses? How many scales? How many 
pinblock configurations? Flange types? Key sets and action 
layouts?

One thing that comes to mind is that the old man wasn't 
content to sit at a desk and run the most efficient possible 
business. He needed to be doing something he considered 
interesting and educational, whatever the cost to the 
business. So he did. I can see the despair on the various shop 
foremen's faces when they saw the boss coming, head down and 
muttering to himself, looking at this week's set of drawings.

Which produced another thought. He didn't mess with bridge 
design, as far as notching, pinning, and capping - at least 
that I recall. Those guys all had sharp chisels in hand.


>  From a design perspective, maybe his assumptions of what constituted a 
> well regulated action was quite different from our assumptions. I don't 
> mean that pejoratively either. I've always preferred the performance of 
> these actions to those built,say, according to steinway assumptions.
> 
> JIm I

Except that of the two approaches, one is intentionally 
random. <G> What becomes the default standard of anything 
isn't necessarily based on specific and absolute performance 
criteria. I'm still regularly amazed at the spectrum breadth 
of what passes as acceptable and even desirable, in anything 
people do. Every army marches to it's own "standard", and 
they're all different.

Ron N