Doing a restringing on a Pease baby grand, circa, 1909. The left pedal raises all the hammers, similar to an upright. But while removing the old wire, I heard something fall inside the action cavity, and noticed what I thought was just a small piece of hard wood, and not realizing what it was, just set it aside for later analysis. Then as I proceeded to de-string the piano, I heard the same sound again, and looked to see the same type of small hardwood had fallen into the cavity. Set that one aside as well and continued on. Toward the end of removing the old wire, yet another piece fell into the cavity. This time I inspected the pieces further and noticed that they were not wood, but small, solid chunks of metal about the size of 1/2 stick of dentyne chewing gum. Earlier I had looked to see where they might be falling from, but couldn't tell. This time I looked closed and noticed that each of the three total pieces had fallen out of a spaces between the underside of the plate! It seems that as the tension of the plate went down due to removing the strings, they started falling out! I wish I had taken a few pics so i could show the actual location to give you a better idea. I guess when re-stringing, these pieces will once again be held in place as the increasing plate tension will "sandwich" the spaces together, and squeeze against the pieces. Has anyone ever seen or heard of anything like this? It doesn't look like the piano was modified in any way, so it is likely the way it was made. I just don't understand the purpose of having these "spaces" with the small pieces filling the gaps. Unless it is the same concept as putting stress lines in concrete, so it won't crack later on. Thoughts on this, anyone? Terry Peterson Accurate Piano Service UniGeezer.com "Over 50, and not "2" Tired!" _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live: Make it easier for your friends to see what you’re up to on Facebook. http://windowslive.com/Campaign/SocialNetworking?ocid=PID23285::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:SI_SB_facebook:082009 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20090830/2362c011/attachment.htm>
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