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Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

  • 1.  Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

    Posted 08-09-2020 16:04
      |   view attached
    I am doing some research into patented actions by Ed. Westermayer prior to 1880. I am having difficulties finding what I want. As far as I can tell, the old patents have been ditgitized and are available as PDF files. However, the old patents, prior to about 1890, do not seem to searchable by key words such as the name of the inventor or the name of the invention. In other words, I need to have the patent number to see the patent. (Which I do not have)

    I found the one attached by a reference in a "Patent Office Gazette" from 1879. However, I am looking for a similar, but earlier patent action, patented around 1870 - 1872 or so. I can't find any "Gazettes" from earlier years.

    Is there a work-around? Who can help?

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    Jurgen Goering
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  • 2.  RE: Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-09-2020 16:55
    Here is one 229006A for an upright action. You'll see that the OCR mucked up Westermayer into wbsteemater. This is rather common, and makes searching a challenge - even when the materials are all there. When I was researching Montal, I found I needed to search Montai as well, and that would come up with more than a search on Montall. Nobody has ever checked the OCRs for these (or ever will).

    Hathitrust has the Official gazette of the United States Patent Office from 1872-1971.

    For England, Great Britain Patent Office yields a lot of books on google books (ie, scanned books mostly), but listed scattershot. Google makes it hard to home in on a single year. Hathitrust has Chronological and descriptive index of patents applied for and patents granted, containing the abridgements of provisional and complete specifications, and if you look in the right column, you will see links to related materials. Poking around within Hathitrust, then doing a general google search on promising titles, will often get you to where you want to go.
    Regards,
    Fred Sturm
    University of New Mexico
    fssturm@unm.edu
    http://fredsturm.net
    www.artoftuning.com
    "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. " Blaise Pascal








  • 3.  RE: Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

    Posted 08-10-2020 13:43
    Hello Fred,
    thanks for the tips and links. I have spent some time on that but have not found any pay dirt. I think I need to acquire some skills in the Library-Sleuth department...  I will do some more poking around... But I did find some potentially interesting information on piano related patents - entertaining if not particularly helpful...

    Do you know if there are any Patent Gazettes prior to 1872? The piano I have is built around 1872 and I assume the patent on the action would have been earlier.

    ------------------------------
    Jurgen Goering
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  • 4.  RE: Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-10-2020 18:06
    I don't know if there are earlier US patent gazettes. Daniel Spillane's book, History of the American Pianoforte, has a chapter that lists "Important Patents Taken Out from 1796 to 1890" (Westermayer doesn't appear).  

    My basic research method is to start with one thing and see where it leads. Usually other related references turn up, so I search them. Hathitrust is not well known, but is a repository for a wealth of materials. archive.org is worth exploring. There are some very good library sites, especially in Germany, that I have stumbled across and where I have found things that didn't show up anywhere else. 

    Most of my research has been on French sources. The French national library is quirky but useful for French resources. France has a good patent search system for 1791 - 1871, where you can search on the name of the patent holder, which was entered by hand rather than OCR. The patent images are unfortunately displayed in a horrible set up that is clunky and annoying, and there is no option to download. 

    Google Patents is great except for the damned OCR problem. There are lots of patents I know are there, and can't find by the name I know they are filed under. As you said, you have to have the patent number. But the patents are all there and accessible, which is pretty amazing.
    Fred Sturm
    University of New Mexico
    fssturm@unm.edu
    http://fredsturm.net
    www.artoftuning.com
    "Practice makes permanent. (Only perfect practice makes perfect)."






  • 5.  RE: Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-10-2020 19:45
    There were some musical periodicals that published notices of recent patents on a regular basis, some in German. Musicalische Zeitung of Berlin was one. Don't know if it covered 1870 or so (it was around in 1833, from which I have an extract of a review Montal's tuning classes)
    Fred Sturm
    fssturm@unm.edu
    www.artoftuning.com
    http://fredsturm.net
    "Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire." -Gustav Mahler






  • 6.  RE: Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-10-2020 22:15
    In an 1881 issue of  Music Trade Review, they quoted Alfred Dolge, who had just been visiting Europe in connection with his business. About German piano makers, he said he noticed several "valuable improvements and new inventions, among which I will only mention a new Grand Action patented by E. Westermayer, of Berlin, which is simple, extremely reliable, and answers with wonderful precision."

    (He also commented that the English were finally adopting machine pressed hammers, as opposed to hand made, while the French were not).

    Music Trade Review unfortunately only goes back to 1880. There were at least a couple other serious American musical periodicals, but the names don't come to mind.
    Fred Sturm
    University of New Mexico
    fssturm@unm.edu
    http://fredsturm.net
    www.artoftuning.com
    "Practice makes permanent. (Only perfect practice makes perfect)."






  • 7.  RE: Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

    Posted 09-01-2020 01:14
      |   view attached

    Fred writes:

    About German piano makers, he [Dolge] said he noticed several "valuable improvements and new inventions, among which I will only mention a new Grand Action patented by E. Westermayer, of Berlin, which is simple, extremely reliable, and answers with wonderful precision."

    I have seen that and it is interesting, for sure.

    Dolge spent extensive time in Europe, visiting all the major players and probably many lesser known ones such as Westermayer. while looking into the Euro scene, he was busily flaunting his wares to European manufacturers - wood, soundboards, and of course hammers.   In his book, he is quite flattering about essentially all of the makers he mentions.  It is no doubt in his best business interest to do so.  Therefore it is not surprising that he has positive comments about the Westermayer invention. But that he singles it out as the only innovation he mentions by name is indeed interesting.

    I have now found a drawing of the action in my Westermayer and will attach it here.



    ------------------------------
    Jurgen Goering
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    Attachment(s)



  • 8.  RE: Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 09-01-2020 14:53
    Jurgen,
    Do you possess a Westermayer grand with this action? Where did you find the drawing?

    It is, indeed interesting, though puzzling. I take it that the butt leather (vestigial knuckle) and the curved pointed wooden “button" stay in contact with one another, and that actual escapement takes place below, though the rotations of shank and the intermediate lever are opposed so that the button would rub along the leather. I’m having trouble picturing exactly how reset takes place (presumably in advance of return to the rest point).

    The downward pinned jack escapes from the nub on the key, and the rebound of the hammer causes the lever pinned to the key to depress (against the action of a spring). But I have trouble imagining how those conditions resolve themselves into reset. I guess it is a little like the Blüthner design in being not as obvious as the Érard system. (Definitely very hard to write about, without labels and names of parts).
    Regards,
    Fred Sturm
    University of New Mexico
    fssturm@unm.edu
    http://fredsturm.net
    www.artoftuning.com
    “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. ” Blaise Pascal




  • 9.  RE: Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

    Posted 09-02-2020 01:51
    Yes, I have a Westermayer grand with this exact action.
    I agree, it is somewhat puzzling. When I first got the piano, years ago, I was in my apprenticeship. I probably couldn't even properly regulate a standard grand action at the time. It took me a very long time to figure this action out. On the one hand, it looks simple, but then there seem to be contradictions, as you imply. I got it to play, finally and I was very surprised at the speed of repetition, or more precisely stated, how deep in the keystroke the action would reset.

    The escapement takes place on the repetition lever mounted on the key.  As the key gets depressed, the articulated twin hopper assembly (my words - I get to name them in absence of a nomenclature ) moves upwards and the primary hopper (the proximal one with the spring) engages the let-off button, forcing the this hopper to slip off the buckskin covered nub on the keystick. By this point in the key travel, the repetition lever has been somewhat depressed by its button (analogous to: drop screw). The whole articulated hopper assembly drops down but its movement is stopped by the secondary hopper coming to rest in its cradle on the rep. lever. When the key is released and its distal part begins to move back down, the rep. lever moves upward, lifting the whole hopper assembly. When the hopper assembly has lifter high enough, the primary hopper re-sets on its nub.
    That's the best I can explain it in words right now.
    Unfortunately, the action brackets are solid wood so there is no way of getting a side-on view and images. I am considering building an action model of this action using original parts so I can play around with it and figure out optimal regulation specs until the time comes when I reassemble the whole action and install it. Contrary to modern actions, this piano does not necessarily "tell you what it needs".  The key dip is unknown and shallow, that I think I know. But how shallow - 9mm, 9.5mm...? Same thing with blow distance. I need to play with it, while being able to observe what is going on.  With this action, changing blow distance will change let-off so there is a bit more trial and error in the optimization, I think.

    As with the Blüthner action, the hammer rest rail is an actual rest rail. But apart from that, the actions are very different, this one being much more complicated, with five action centers as opposed to Blüthner's two per note.  (Small wonder it didn't take the industry by storm!)

    I found the sketch in an edition of the German "Zeitschrift für Instrumentenbau" (musical instrument trade journal). These are available on line, but not machine readable. In other words, thousands and thousands of pages with no way to search for anything.  But I found a different way to  search for key words. Not 100% accurate, but a great help.

    ------------------------------
    Jurgen Goering
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  • 10.  RE: Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

    Member
    Posted 08-09-2020 22:43
    Jurgen   - have you seen this ?
    http://www.pianoklang.de/kleinanzeigen/index.php?action=modAnzlist_anzdetail&kat_id=4&anz_id=1192&sid=


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    James Kelly
    Owner- Fur Elise Piano Service
    Pawleys Island SC
    843-325-4357
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  • 11.  RE: Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-10-2020 21:11
    If I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing, this has the eye screw on the key like the piano I worked on
    Jurgen, do you concur?

    Laura
    Sent from my iPhone




  • 12.  RE: Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-10-2020 21:26
    Hi Jurgen
    Glad to hear you are well. My action is a bit different on the key. I’ll try and add a picture of it here.




  • 13.  RE: Ed. Westermayer - Accessing US or British patents

    Posted 08-11-2020 01:44
    James, thanks for the link to that ad. That seems to be an older instrument, pre-1870.  I will try to follow up and see if I can get more information or pictures.
    I am grateful for any links or leads  to information about Westermayer, their pianos or their patents.

    regards, JG

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    Jurgen Goering
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