Scott,
This is a little late, but I can relay to you some personal experiences from working in the Bechstein factory in Berlin in the early 1970's for a number of years. They are (or were at the time) pretty careful about gluing on the hammers "burning" (minor adjustments at the end - and thanks, Susan, for the call-out) and traveling of the shanks. The thinking as I understood it was that the work was done so well, they did not want the flanges to be moved around by subsequent technicians. The pins are brass pins with a point on the bottom and after we went through our two regulations in the action department, we hammered in the pins to "set" the flange in place. Then a fine file was run over the tops of the pins to level them all with the tops of the flanges. If a flange were removed, you could simply grab the pin with a pliers and pull it out. However, I think if the flange screw were loosened, the hammer can be slightly spaced. Then tighten up the flange screw. Side note: we had a contest in that we would pour out a quantity of pins from the bucket into our own container on our bench, trying to get as close to 88 as possible. If we poured out exactly 88 (I did it once), everyone else in the department would buy that worker a beer. Side side note: this was before bottled water and bottles of beer were the beverage to "wet your whistle" during the work day. For some, whistle-wetting began around 7am and went on through the work day -- a different work atmosphere over there.
Cecil mentioned spacing the strings in the capo section. If this is a typical Bechstein of the period, there will be no capo section. Bechstein grands had agraffes all the way up to the top of the scale. It dictated a slightly different hammer bore angle, tilting the treble hammers back one degree so the top hammers would not hit the plate (needed close to the hammer line to receive the agraffe.)
The other thing I wanted to mention with all the talk of shank warping with heat and traveling by inserting strips of paper under the flange, is that warping the shank corrects defects in hammer gluing and traveling addresses imperfections in the flange/shank pinning. Only after both of those things are done is hammer spacing fine tuned. Another point: we paid attention to the spaces between flanges before they were set with the pins. So #28 seems to have been moved. Wouldn't it be funny if the flanges were spaced, you checked the "burning" and the traveling and the hammer spacing went back to perfect?
Did the customer's great-grandfather buy the piano in Germany? That would have been quite a bit before my time, but I do not recall mention of sperm oil (different from whale oil, see Wikipedia) used as a lubricant.
OK Scott - thanks for the chance to reminisce.
Joel
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Joel Rappaport
Rappaport's Piano Workshop
Round Rock TX
512-255-0440
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-10-2019 22:10
From: Scott Cole
Subject: A whale of a tale
I serviced an old Bechstein grand today, from about 1900, and found a couple of interesting things.
First, the ends of the hammer shanks were held in place by metal pins, rendering them non-adjustable. Anyone seen this?
While the owner will likely not pay for any work on it, theoretically the hammers do need alignment. My first impulse would be to cut the pins off with a Dremel or hacksaw if needed. Any other ideas?
Also, the owner told me that his great-grandfather had told him that he had purchased the piano new, and that it had come with a bottle of sperm whale oil as a lubricant. It doesn't seem to have caused any verdigris. I believe, though, that the owner may have actually used WD-40 on it.
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Scott Cole, RPT
rvpianotuner.com
Talent, OR
(541-601-9033
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