class rebuild work

[Ron Nossaman]

I tuned a 6 1/2' Chickering today. It had been patched up at 
some time in the distant past, with new strings, pinblock, and 
hammers. Original dampers, and otherwise original action. A 
total basket case now, board shot and action worn clear out. I 
pulled the action at one point to clear rubbing adjacent 
hammers and found what's almost shown in the alleged photo. 
Sorry, my phone camera isn't exactly state of the art, nor is 
the operator. The finest set of resonating shank patches I've 
ever seen, with a hammer hanging job to match. The brass 
sleeved shank was the one that was the problem. The shank 
pieces were square cut and butted together inside the brass 
sleeve without benefit of glue to keep the hammer pointing in 
the right direction. The keys were numbered from 1 at C-8, to 
88 at A-0, which I thought was fun. She said they got the 
piano so she and the kids could learn to play on it. I told 
her to be ready, because the piano is DOA, and the kids will 
start pointing that out far sooner than she would like. So 
start getting used to the idea of either rebuilding this one, 
which could make a terrific piano, or replacing it with 
something newer. I suppose we'll see.

My last one was a Baldwin the movers had dropped off the ramp 
(she watched it happen), and broke off both front legs. "We'll 
fix it", they said, and spirited it away to the elves workshop 
where they applied some unidentified glue, and stuck the 
broken ends back together. There - fixed! The two broken legs 
I looked at indicated that they weren't, in fact, all that 
fixed, so I made her an estimate to submit to the moving 
company for somewhat more extensive repairs. They had moved 
with this company twice before with no problems at all, so she 
was pretty sure they would be cooperative in getting this over 
with. So again, I suppose we'll see. Sorry, no poor quality 
pictures of that one.

Tomorrow, I go look at a Story & Clark grand in an estate sale 
for someone before I get to go out in the shop and start 
priming a plate. Man, the fun just never ends! Makes me wonder 
what all those poor souls out there with "real" jobs do for 
entertainment.  <G>

Ron N
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