Pianotech

I worked on a 1974 Mason A, and although was aware this era was a bad one for Mason Hamlin, I was surprised by some of the defects. The plate seemed poorly cast and the bass bridge had a couple of nasty gouges where the wood seemed to have been torn away from the bridge while being notched. It also played horribly but maintenance had clearly been neglected. Sound was ok at best.

Curious to know more about what was lacking during this era. What are these instruments worth in good as well as poor condition? Are they suitable for rebuilding?

------------------------------
Ruben Jackson
------------------------------

I'm interested to hear what people say.  There's a 1950s Mason & Hamlin A under my care and it is wretched.  Is it worth restringing etc.

------------------------------
Zeno Wood
Brooklyn, NY
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 01:33
From: Ruben Jackson
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

I worked on a 1974 Mason A, and although was aware this era was a bad one for Mason Hamlin, I was surprised by some of the defects. The plate seemed poorly cast and the bass bridge had a couple of nasty gouges where the wood seemed to have been torn away from the bridge while being notched. It also played horribly but maintenance had clearly been neglected. Sound was ok at best.

Curious to know more about what was lacking during this era. What are these instruments worth in good as well as poor condition? Are they suitable for rebuilding?

------------------------------
Ruben Jackson
------------------------------

I have re-manufactured a number of Aeolians...Chickering, Knabe from their Aeolian Era (sounds like a geologic term)...Up through about the 50s.

They can be made in to excellent instruments. From a rebuilder's perspective, on the up side, they were mass produced. This means construction was fairly rational, as opposed to other manufactures who pride themselves in continuing traditions of arcane construction. A rationally conceived and constructed case is relatively easy to improve. Up through, at least the mid forty's, early fifty's, where I have my experience, the veneers still tended to be quite good, and thick. Glues were urea formaldehyde, so glue joints are structurally quite good. Actions were laid out pretty well and consistently, and easy to upgrade.  Plates were fine, though I messed with terminations and hitch pins.

On the  down, they were under engineered structrually...so I beefed the structures up. Tossed the soundboard designs completely. New bridges, as the scarfed long bridge roots are, in my opinion a bad idea. New caps, so original cap stock and grain orientation not an issue either as it went away. Wire front segment conditions needed attention, but so do all pianos if one is paying attention to future ease of tuning.

I have no problem working with these cores, and they can sound quite nice, if approached appropriately.. 


------------------------------
Jim Ialeggio
grandpianosolutions.com
Shirley, MA
978 425-9026
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 09:40
From: Zeno Wood
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

I'm interested to hear what people say.  There's a 1950s Mason & Hamlin A under my care and it is wretched.  Is it worth restringing etc.

------------------------------
Zeno Wood
Brooklyn, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 01:33
From: Ruben Jackson
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

I worked on a 1974 Mason A, and although was aware this era was a bad one for Mason Hamlin, I was surprised by some of the defects. The plate seemed poorly cast and the bass bridge had a couple of nasty gouges where the wood seemed to have been torn away from the bridge while being notched. It also played horribly but maintenance had clearly been neglected. Sound was ok at best.

Curious to know more about what was lacking during this era. What are these instruments worth in good as well as poor condition? Are they suitable for rebuilding?

------------------------------
Ruben Jackson
------------------------------

"scarfed long bridge roots"

Sorry Mr. Ialeggio; but I don't know what that means. Could you elucidate?

------------------------------
Karl Roeder
Pompano Beach FL
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 01:33
From: Ruben Jackson
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

I worked on a 1974 Mason A, and although was aware this era was a bad one for Mason Hamlin, I was surprised by some of the defects. The plate seemed poorly cast and the bass bridge had a couple of nasty gouges where the wood seemed to have been torn away from the bridge while being notched. It also played horribly but maintenance had clearly been neglected. Sound was ok at best.

Curious to know more about what was lacking during this era. What are these instruments worth in good as well as poor condition? Are they suitable for rebuilding?

------------------------------
Ruben Jackson
------------------------------

I am working on a 1979 Chickering 501 right now. The bones of the design are good. The wire scaling, action fitting, and bridge work were crap. 

The tonal problems with the piano were:
Muddy, nasal bass tone.   Thin mid treble tone (notes range 52 to 75). Poor dynamic range overall. Bad scale break at bass/tenor. Twangy tone on lowest plain string notes (range 30-38).
The things I have changed/fixed/upgraded include: Reset tuning pin field in top two treble sections further away from capo to allow forinstallation of my Fully Tempered Duplex Scale, (New pinblock of course). Reshaped V-bar to 1mm string contact point and full V-shape not U-shape profile. Champfer agraffe string holes to provide for 1mm string contact point. Installed a 1/8" birch plywood structure about 6" in diameter, (but not full round more like a pear outline with part of the end missing), at the bottom of the tenor bridge.  Convert notes 26-29 from wound bi-chord to wound trichord on Type O core wire. String notes 30-35 with Stainless wire. String notes 36-43 with Paulello type O wire. Overstrung scale has type O cores on notes 1-6 and 11-12. Lay out custom strike line that curves deeper toward the bridge, note 55 is about 5mm longer on the shanks than note 88. Mount top action higher so as to reduce bore distance to 45mm treble and 53mm bass. New damper guide rails, letoff rail, and upstop rails.

There are a few other details that take too long to describe with the action.

The tonal transformation is wonderful. The piano has a rich, clear, dynamic deep tone that I dare  say very few people have ever heard produced by a piano this small.

If given the proper resources, I find the Rochester Aeolian 501 Chickering/Knabe grands very good cores to work from. In my part of the woods where soundboards last nearly forever ones from the 1970's on can end up sounding like they have new boards. Even some from the 1950's. The Mason's can be truly exceptional. BUT there is much to fix in these pianos as the workmanship was god awful sloppy.

------------------------------
Edward McMorrow
Edmonds WA
425-299-3431
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 23:04
From: Karl Roeder
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

"scarfed long bridge roots"

Sorry Mr. Ialeggio; but I don't know what that means. Could you elucidate?

------------------------------
Karl Roeder
Pompano Beach FL

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 01:33
From: Ruben Jackson
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

I worked on a 1974 Mason A, and although was aware this era was a bad one for Mason Hamlin, I was surprised by some of the defects. The plate seemed poorly cast and the bass bridge had a couple of nasty gouges where the wood seemed to have been torn away from the bridge while being notched. It also played horribly but maintenance had clearly been neglected. Sound was ok at best.

Curious to know more about what was lacking during this era. What are these instruments worth in good as well as poor condition? Are they suitable for rebuilding?

------------------------------
Ruben Jackson
------------------------------

<"scarfed long bridge roots" 

Note...I am referring to the roots and not the caps.

Because the length of the long bridge is curved, a single 4ft to 5ft solid piece of wood cannot span the entire length of the long bridge using a single length of stock. Some manufacturers deal with this problem by laminating many thin layers of maple, the full length of the bridge, shaping to laminations into a curve, using a caul to shape the curve into the wood. The resulting beam is extraordinarily strong. However, it takes time to make the lamination.

Others, like Yamaha, don't use a curved laminated bridge root. Instead, they simply join two pieces of wood end to end to allow them to form the root's curve. Two 90 deg cuts end-to-end are called butt joints. You can't butt joint two pieces of wood together, becausue end grain-to-end grain glue joints have no structural strength whatsoever. Butt joints, ie end grain gluing is at best a temporary way to attach the two pieces together.

Edge grain, or long grain glue joints, as we use in gluing, for instance, an soundboard panel up, are quite strong...stronger than the wood itself. End grain-to-end grain joints, found in a butt joint, are structurally useless. So, in order to glue a bridge root end grain-to-end grain (structurally useless glue joint), instead of a butt joint, a "scarfed" joint is used to expose a higher percentage of long grain-to-long grain(excellent glue surface) glue surface into the other wise end-to-end joint

The scarfed joint has improved structural strength compared to simple 90 deg end cuts, but it is still has questionable structural strength. My own feeling on this joint is that not only does the scarf present an minimally adequate joint, but that the joint is then located in a portion of the bridge that receives the most concentrated loads on the bridge. So, if this single, short, minimally adequate joint fails, your belly is toast...Zero redundancy, kind of like the Challenger's "O" ring.

The laminated version of the long bridge entirely eliminates this weakness, distributing the load over a huge sq ft, area. It increases the glue surface area by thousands of %. All of this glue surface is excellent long grain glue surface, and most of it is distributed in lower stress areas of the bridge root. 




------------------------------
Jim Ialeggio
grandpianosolutions.com
Shirley, MA
978 425-9026
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 23:04
From: Karl Roeder
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

"scarfed long bridge roots"

Sorry Mr. Ialeggio; but I don't know what that means. Could you elucidate?

------------------------------
Karl Roeder
Pompano Beach FL

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 01:33
From: Ruben Jackson
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

I worked on a 1974 Mason A, and although was aware this era was a bad one for Mason Hamlin, I was surprised by some of the defects. The plate seemed poorly cast and the bass bridge had a couple of nasty gouges where the wood seemed to have been torn away from the bridge while being notched. It also played horribly but maintenance had clearly been neglected. Sound was ok at best.

Curious to know more about what was lacking during this era. What are these instruments worth in good as well as poor condition? Are they suitable for rebuilding?

------------------------------
Ruben Jackson
------------------------------

Thank you Mr. Ialeggio. What are you using to laminate your new bridge roots?

------------------------------
Karl Roeder
Pompano Beach FL
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-02-2017 09:41
From: Jim Ialeggio
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

<"scarfed long bridge roots"

Note...I am referring to the roots and not the caps.

Because the length of the long bridge is curved, a single 4ft to 5ft solid piece of wood cannot span the entire length of the long bridge using a single length of stock. Some manufacturers deal with this problem by laminating many thin layers of maple, the full length of the bridge, shaping to laminations into a curve, using a caul to shape the curve into the wood. The resulting beam is extraordinarily strong. However, it takes time to make the lamination.

Others, like Yamaha, don't use a curved laminated bridge root. Instead, they simply join two pieces of wood end to end to allow them to form the root's curve. Two 90 deg cuts end-to-end are called butt joints. You can't butt joint two pieces of wood together, becausue end grain-to-end grain glue joints have no structural strength whatsoever. Butt joints, ie end grain gluing is at best a temporary way to attach the two pieces together.

Edge grain, or long grain glue joints, as we use in gluing, for instance, an soundboard panel up, are quite strong...stronger than the wood itself. End grain-to-end grain joints, found in a butt joint, are structurally useless. So, in order to glue a bridge root end grain-to-end grain (structurally useless glue joint), instead of a butt joint, a "scarfed" joint is used to expose a higher percentage of long grain-to-long grain(excellent glue surface) glue surface into the other wise end-to-end joint

The scarfed joint has improved structural strength compared to simple 90 deg end cuts, but it is still has questionable structural strength. My own feeling on this joint is that not only does the scarf present an minimally adequate joint, but that the joint is then located in a portion of the bridge that receives the most concentrated loads on the bridge. So, if this single, short, minimally adequate joint fails, your belly is toast...Zero redundancy, kind of like the Challenger's "O" ring.

The laminated version of the long bridge entirely eliminates this weakness, distributing the load over a huge sq ft, area. It increases the glue surface area by thousands of %. All of this glue surface is excellent long grain glue surface, and most of it is distributed in lower stress areas of the bridge root.




------------------------------
Jim Ialeggio
grandpianosolutions.com
Shirley, MA
978 425-9026

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 23:04
From: Karl Roeder
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

"scarfed long bridge roots"

Sorry Mr. Ialeggio; but I don't know what that means. Could you elucidate?

------------------------------
Karl Roeder
Pompano Beach FL

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 01:33
From: Ruben Jackson
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

I worked on a 1974 Mason A, and although was aware this era was a bad one for Mason Hamlin, I was surprised by some of the defects. The plate seemed poorly cast and the bass bridge had a couple of nasty gouges where the wood seemed to have been torn away from the bridge while being notched. It also played horribly but maintenance had clearly been neglected. Sound was ok at best.

Curious to know more about what was lacking during this era. What are these instruments worth in good as well as poor condition? Are they suitable for rebuilding?

------------------------------
Ruben Jackson
------------------------------

< What are you using to laminate your new bridge roots?

Nothing fancy...just a dedicated 2x12 piece of framing lumber that I flatten as necessary before use (once or twice a year at most). Blocks from old pinblocks form the shape, lagged in position with timber lock lags, wax paper release under the blocks and entire lamination, blocks every couple of inches.

The glue is either Urea formadehyde or Polyurethane. The Urea is very stiff, but hard on the  jointer blades for clean-up...also I seem to have developed a sensitivity to the uf dust...I try to avoid it these days. I like the gorilla glue, as it allows longer assembly time than PVA, but way less than UF. The gorilla glue is real easy on the jointer knives, and does not creep. Spring back is very minor. Glue strength, though less than the UF still excedes the strength of the maple fibres.

On two Aeolian rebuilds, where i had initially decided not to laminate a new root, and had planned to spline and sandwich the scarf, to redundantly support the scarf, the existing scarf literally fell apart in my hands. Two different Aeolians...30 yrs apart.  So I jumped ship and made a new root. There was no obvious apparent failure, visually in the scarf, but they failed, as they sometimes do. Tonally, there was major evidence, in hind sight, listening to the instrument before disassembly. The tonal profile of both these Aeolians was horrendous...zero capability of any sustain, somewhat mysterious (at the time) buzzes, and an odd absence of defined pitch...just abrasive noise, unresponsive to experimental hammer work.  The tonal failure was of a similar nature to other "loose board" failures, where either the soundboard is broken free of the rim, ribs delaminated from the panel, etc. 

Incidentally, the Knabe  Aeolian, like the Aeolian and current Masons, have a crown shape milled into the rim soundboard glue surface, to force the board into a longitudunal crown. This apparent "permanent crown", added nothing to the totally failed tonal nature of these pre-rebuild cores.

------------------------------
Jim Ialeggio
grandpianosolutions.com
Shirley, MA
978 425-9026
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-02-2017 12:19
From: Karl Roeder
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

Thank you Mr. Ialeggio. What are you using to laminate your new bridge roots?

------------------------------
Karl Roeder
Pompano Beach FL

Original Message:
Sent: 09-02-2017 09:41
From: Jim Ialeggio
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

<"scarfed long bridge roots"

Note...I am referring to the roots and not the caps.

Because the length of the long bridge is curved, a single 4ft to 5ft solid piece of wood cannot span the entire length of the long bridge using a single length of stock. Some manufacturers deal with this problem by laminating many thin layers of maple, the full length of the bridge, shaping to laminations into a curve, using a caul to shape the curve into the wood. The resulting beam is extraordinarily strong. However, it takes time to make the lamination.

Others, like Yamaha, don't use a curved laminated bridge root. Instead, they simply join two pieces of wood end to end to allow them to form the root's curve. Two 90 deg cuts end-to-end are called butt joints. You can't butt joint two pieces of wood together, becausue end grain-to-end grain glue joints have no structural strength whatsoever. Butt joints, ie end grain gluing is at best a temporary way to attach the two pieces together.

Edge grain, or long grain glue joints, as we use in gluing, for instance, an soundboard panel up, are quite strong...stronger than the wood itself. End grain-to-end grain joints, found in a butt joint, are structurally useless. So, in order to glue a bridge root end grain-to-end grain (structurally useless glue joint), instead of a butt joint, a "scarfed" joint is used to expose a higher percentage of long grain-to-long grain(excellent glue surface) glue surface into the other wise end-to-end joint

The scarfed joint has improved structural strength compared to simple 90 deg end cuts, but it is still has questionable structural strength. My own feeling on this joint is that not only does the scarf present an minimally adequate joint, but that the joint is then located in a portion of the bridge that receives the most concentrated loads on the bridge. So, if this single, short, minimally adequate joint fails, your belly is toast...Zero redundancy, kind of like the Challenger's "O" ring.

The laminated version of the long bridge entirely eliminates this weakness, distributing the load over a huge sq ft, area. It increases the glue surface area by thousands of %. All of this glue surface is excellent long grain glue surface, and most of it is distributed in lower stress areas of the bridge root.




------------------------------
Jim Ialeggio
grandpianosolutions.com
Shirley, MA
978 425-9026

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 23:04
From: Karl Roeder
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

"scarfed long bridge roots"

Sorry Mr. Ialeggio; but I don't know what that means. Could you elucidate?

------------------------------
Karl Roeder
Pompano Beach FL

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 01:33
From: Ruben Jackson
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

I worked on a 1974 Mason A, and although was aware this era was a bad one for Mason Hamlin, I was surprised by some of the defects. The plate seemed poorly cast and the bass bridge had a couple of nasty gouges where the wood seemed to have been torn away from the bridge while being notched. It also played horribly but maintenance had clearly been neglected. Sound was ok at best.

Curious to know more about what was lacking during this era. What are these instruments worth in good as well as poor condition? Are they suitable for rebuilding?

------------------------------
Ruben Jackson
------------------------------

There is a  flaw in laleggio's reasoning, that causes him to search for a weaknesses that doesn't exist. There is no lap joint per se in isolation, but a 4 ply laminated structure in which one of the laminations has a lap joint. 
Thats a huge difference in structural integrity!



------------------------------
[Chris] [Chernobieff]
[Lenoir City] [TN]

Make The Piano Great Again!
Lock it up, or Cristofori will pay for it.
Shh, I just deleted 30,000 scores from my hard drive.
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-02-2017 09:41
From: Jim Ialeggio
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

<"scarfed long bridge roots"

Note...I am referring to the roots and not the caps.

Because the length of the long bridge is curved, a single 4ft to 5ft solid piece of wood cannot span the entire length of the long bridge using a single length of stock. Some manufacturers deal with this problem by laminating many thin layers of maple, the full length of the bridge, shaping to laminations into a curve, using a caul to shape the curve into the wood. The resulting beam is extraordinarily strong. However, it takes time to make the lamination.

Others, like Yamaha, don't use a curved laminated bridge root. Instead, they simply join two pieces of wood end to end to allow them to form the root's curve. Two 90 deg cuts end-to-end are called butt joints. You can't butt joint two pieces of wood together, becausue end grain-to-end grain glue joints have no structural strength whatsoever. Butt joints, ie end grain gluing is at best a temporary way to attach the two pieces together.

Edge grain, or long grain glue joints, as we use in gluing, for instance, an soundboard panel up, are quite strong...stronger than the wood itself. End grain-to-end grain joints, found in a butt joint, are structurally useless. So, in order to glue a bridge root end grain-to-end grain (structurally useless glue joint), instead of a butt joint, a "scarfed" joint is used to expose a higher percentage of long grain-to-long grain(excellent glue surface) glue surface into the other wise end-to-end joint

The scarfed joint has improved structural strength compared to simple 90 deg end cuts, but it is still has questionable structural strength. My own feeling on this joint is that not only does the scarf present an minimally adequate joint, but that the joint is then located in a portion of the bridge that receives the most concentrated loads on the bridge. So, if this single, short, minimally adequate joint fails, your belly is toast...Zero redundancy, kind of like the Challenger's "O" ring.

The laminated version of the long bridge entirely eliminates this weakness, distributing the load over a huge sq ft, area. It increases the glue surface area by thousands of %. All of this glue surface is excellent long grain glue surface, and most of it is distributed in lower stress areas of the bridge root.




------------------------------
Jim Ialeggio
grandpianosolutions.com
Shirley, MA
978 425-9026

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 23:04
From: Karl Roeder
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

"scarfed long bridge roots"

Sorry Mr. Ialeggio; but I don't know what that means. Could you elucidate?

------------------------------
Karl Roeder
Pompano Beach FL

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 01:33
From: Ruben Jackson
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

I worked on a 1974 Mason A, and although was aware this era was a bad one for Mason Hamlin, I was surprised by some of the defects. The plate seemed poorly cast and the bass bridge had a couple of nasty gouges where the wood seemed to have been torn away from the bridge while being notched. It also played horribly but maintenance had clearly been neglected. Sound was ok at best.

Curious to know more about what was lacking during this era. What are these instruments worth in good as well as poor condition? Are they suitable for rebuilding?

------------------------------
Ruben Jackson
------------------------------

I have seen scarf-joint capped-bridge pianos where the scarf joint weakness is exposed by the flexible spruce. The spruce "cap" can't hold the bridge together over time with the results just as Jim describes.

------------------------------
Edward McMorrow
Edmonds WA
425-299-3431
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-02-2017 12:57
From: Chris Chernobieff
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

There is a  flaw in laleggio's reasoning, that causes him to search for a weaknesses that doesn't exist. There is no lap joint per se in isolation, but a 4 ply laminated structure in which one of the laminations has a lap joint.
Thats a huge difference in structural integrity!



------------------------------
[Chris] [Chernobieff]
[Lenoir City] [TN]

Make The Piano Great Again!
Lock it up, or Cristofori will pay for it.
Shh, I just deleted 30,000 scores from my hard drive.

Original Message:
Sent: 09-02-2017 09:41
From: Jim Ialeggio
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

<"scarfed long bridge roots"

Note...I am referring to the roots and not the caps.

Because the length of the long bridge is curved, a single 4ft to 5ft solid piece of wood cannot span the entire length of the long bridge using a single length of stock. Some manufacturers deal with this problem by laminating many thin layers of maple, the full length of the bridge, shaping to laminations into a curve, using a caul to shape the curve into the wood. The resulting beam is extraordinarily strong. However, it takes time to make the lamination.

Others, like Yamaha, don't use a curved laminated bridge root. Instead, they simply join two pieces of wood end to end to allow them to form the root's curve. Two 90 deg cuts end-to-end are called butt joints. You can't butt joint two pieces of wood together, becausue end grain-to-end grain glue joints have no structural strength whatsoever. Butt joints, ie end grain gluing is at best a temporary way to attach the two pieces together.

Edge grain, or long grain glue joints, as we use in gluing, for instance, an soundboard panel up, are quite strong...stronger than the wood itself. End grain-to-end grain joints, found in a butt joint, are structurally useless. So, in order to glue a bridge root end grain-to-end grain (structurally useless glue joint), instead of a butt joint, a "scarfed" joint is used to expose a higher percentage of long grain-to-long grain(excellent glue surface) glue surface into the other wise end-to-end joint

The scarfed joint has improved structural strength compared to simple 90 deg end cuts, but it is still has questionable structural strength. My own feeling on this joint is that not only does the scarf present an minimally adequate joint, but that the joint is then located in a portion of the bridge that receives the most concentrated loads on the bridge. So, if this single, short, minimally adequate joint fails, your belly is toast...Zero redundancy, kind of like the Challenger's "O" ring.

The laminated version of the long bridge entirely eliminates this weakness, distributing the load over a huge sq ft, area. It increases the glue surface area by thousands of %. All of this glue surface is excellent long grain glue surface, and most of it is distributed in lower stress areas of the bridge root.




------------------------------
Jim Ialeggio
grandpianosolutions.com
Shirley, MA
978 425-9026

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 23:04
From: Karl Roeder
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

"scarfed long bridge roots"

Sorry Mr. Ialeggio; but I don't know what that means. Could you elucidate?

------------------------------
Karl Roeder
Pompano Beach FL

Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2017 01:33
From: Ruben Jackson
Subject: Quality of Aeolian Mason Hamlin

I worked on a 1974 Mason A, and although was aware this era was a bad one for Mason Hamlin, I was surprised by some of the defects. The plate seemed poorly cast and the bass bridge had a couple of nasty gouges where the wood seemed to have been torn away from the bridge while being notched. It also played horribly but maintenance had clearly been neglected. Sound was ok at best.

Curious to know more about what was lacking during this era. What are these instruments worth in good as well as poor condition? Are they suitable for rebuilding?

------------------------------
Ruben Jackson
------------------------------