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Chickering Brass hammer flange conversion to wooden flanges

  • 1.  Chickering Brass hammer flange conversion to wooden flanges

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 16 days ago

    Has anyone done this and can share their experience?  I'm considering doing it and haven't even looked into what's involved but have thought about it over the years on occasion (until my need for sanity compelled me to abandon the thought).  



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    David Love RPT
    www.davidlovepianos.com
    davidlovepianos@comcast.net
    415 407 8320
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  • 2.  RE: Chickering Brass hammer flange conversion to wooden flanges

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 16 days ago

    It's been done but I doubt on a quarter grand. Contact WN&G



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    Larry Messerly, RPT
    Bringing Harmony to Homes
    www.lacrossepianotuning.com
    ljmesserly@gmail.com
    928-899-7292
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Chickering Brass hammer flange conversion to wooden flanges

    Posted 16 days ago
    Hi, David,

    Trust your instincts.

    I've done it. Twice. Once on a 121 Quarter Grand; and once on a 116. No more...unless for an unimaginable fee.

    While WNG may now have flanges that will work, they weren't around the first time I did it. That time, a machinist friend made new parts for me...once; and that cost me a case of Oban in addition to T & M.

    The second time around, someone else had already purchased wooden parts, so those were what I used. Far too much modification required for too little return on the investment of time. While the end result eventually worked, I was never even marginally pleased with the outcome. In retrospect, had I followed my gut and made a new rep support flange rail, the outcome _might_ have been more rewarding.

    On net, as much as I love those older pianos, I've gradually come to the opinion that, should one feel an overwhelming need to work on these things, one should own them outright first; and then decide how much time one can invest for how much negative extrinsic return.

    All of that negativity aside, a friend has spent much of the last year doing exactly that for an early 20th C Chickering full concert grand. Their very wise, in my view, decision was to contract with an action builder to design and construct a complete replacement. The results have been quite marvelous. I'll leave it to them to speak to their ongoing adventure with their project.

    Obviously, YMMV.

    Kind regards.

    Horace




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  • 4.  RE: Chickering Brass hammer flange conversion to wooden flanges

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 16 days ago

    It's actually an 8' piano, not a quarter grand



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    David Love RPT
    www.davidlovepianos.com
    davidlovepianos@comcast.net
    415 407 8320
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Chickering Brass hammer flange conversion to wooden flanges

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 16 days ago
    Talk to Randy Morton at Pacific Piano Supply Co.

    Regards,

    Bill

    Bill Shull, RPT, M.Mus.
    www.shullpiano.com
    www.periodpiano.org
    909 796-4226

    Sent from my iPhone



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  • 6.  RE: Chickering Brass hammer flange conversion to wooden flanges

    Posted 16 days ago
    Hi, David,

    If it's nominally 8', then it's probably a 116; and may well still have some version of brass flanges.

    While the models larger than the Quarter Grand didn't usually have flaring of the string angles as wild as those in the quarter, there is still enough of an angle to be potentially problematic. That's where the problems with the currently available wood parts become apparent.

    Basically, it's not clear to me if Tokiwa/whomever has taken the variety of flaring and flange rails into account when designing their parts. On the pianos that I've seen with these parts...a couple of dozen or so, nothing exhaustive...it's been often been necessary to do a bunch of hand-fitting of the parts, most often the flanges, to get things into a ballpark in which they can sort of be regulated.

    To keep all of this in some kind of perspective, I think that it was Jude Reveley who has said words to the effect that, if one has worked on one Chickering, one has done exactly that...worked on _one_ Chickering. Chris Robinson used to talk indirectly about this in referring to the various visions of piano design that were prevalent in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. Some companies had a clear vision of what they wanted; and some were "all over the place" ...my words, not Chris'. In any event, while Chickering had some truly incredibly wonderful designs and products, they also produced a whole bunch of very difficult to service instruments.

    Sorry for the length.

    Kind regards.

    Horace





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  • 7.  RE: Chickering Brass hammer flange conversion to wooden flanges

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 16 days ago
    In my current research project on Chickering, which results in a paper in a couple weeks at the American musical instrument Society 2024 conference, I report Darcy Kuronen's conclusion that (in my words) Chickering's mentor John Osborne never made the same piano twice. Osborne was inventive, restless, and difficult to get along with. Chickering had the first two traits.  It looks like he learned well.  

    By the way, if the piano is approaching 8 foot in length, it would be what Chickering once called a semi grand, first named a scale 19 (7'7"-7'8")and from the late 1880s through the 1910s it was successively a 98, 110, 110B, 119 and 138.  (The 116 was in the 6'3"/6'4" range.). (If you find additional scales please let me know!)

    Regards,

    Bill

    Bill Shull, RPT, M.Mus.
    www.shullpiano.com
    www.periodpiano.org
    909 796-4226

    Sent from my iPhone



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  • 8.  RE: Chickering Brass hammer flange conversion to wooden flanges

    Posted 16 days ago
    Hi, Bill,

    That correlates with what I found years ago when working on a museum collection El Pueblo de Los Angeles (short name version), which was, at that time, located just off of Olvera Street. Earlier restoration on several instruments had been done by Keith Hardest to mid-20th C standards...not period-centric conservation. As always, Keith's work was exquisite. It was a very long time ago.

    Pertinent here is that ia m currently taking care of...as in herding along...a 116 that measures 7' 4". As you note, they never made the same piano twice...which is part of the present-day joy and treasure of working on them.

    It's important to remember that, at one point, Chickering was Steinway's only substantive competition. Among others, there is a recording of an 1865 Chickering from the Smithsonian Collection featuring Lambert Orkis playing Gottshalk that is worth hearing. David Lamoreaux was the technician for this, as well as several other recordings which featured period instruments.

    Kind regards.

    Horace




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  • 9.  RE: Chickering Brass hammer flange conversion to wooden flanges

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 16 days ago
    Hi Horace, 

    So having agreed that Chickering continued the restless and transitory process of manufacturing that emulated Osbourne, i'd also like to say that he also clearly had a strong business sense and some clarity of plan. So he did establish scales (or at least the culture which provided that foundation) and he attempted to stay with a plan for cabinet shapes, string scale, plans, and the like.  He brought in the inventor of the cast iron plate, Alpheus Babcock, who didn't make pianos with cast iron plates in spite of having invented it, and proceeded to build pianos with cast-iron plates with Babcock on board and a new Chickering  plate patent to boot.  And Jonas himself died before this plethora of scales had been developed.  The fact that Chickering the company started so long ago, had so many decades to build pianos, and built a large number over 140 years, is kind of lost on us when we make our sweeping generalizations about Chickering never making the same piano twice.  There is no doubt that Chickering couldn't hold still, nor could his sons - especially his sons. But this was normal for them, it took Steinway to come along and build fewer styles and scales and stick with them with less change, and market strongly these few styles.  Steinway started later and was readily able to reject anachronism in design.  And Chickering's brilliant innovations in the 1860s and 70s often were not continued, were dropped, and then taken back up later, but only after Steinway had gotten an edge with them.  And because most Chickering grand pianos used the Brown action till 1900, they were saddled with an action which - exquisite to play – is in the service department, unforgiving.   So by 1910-1912 Chickering had transitioned entirely to the Erard Herz action.

    Poor Jonas himself doesn't deserve our heaping frustration or sweeping judgment - he died in 1852 and very few have seen any pianos from his period of manufacturing - and even his sons might be worth more restraint and respect.  

    Both companies nearly went under in the 1890s, but each thrived after.

    FWIW the scale 116 is 6'4", the 119 is the longer one.  I've heard that scales varied in length but have always disproved this so far.

    Always so interesting to talk about Hardesty.  I've seen some work of his that I was baffled by, but my exposure was anecdotal.  His work should be more thoroughly chronicled.  Maybe you and Alan should write something up - or at least be interviewed?

    Regards,

    Bill

    Bill Shull, RPT, M.Mus.
    www.shullpiano.com
    www.periodpiano.org
    909 796-4226

    Sent from my iPhone



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  • 10.  RE: Chickering Brass hammer flange conversion to wooden flanges

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 15 days ago

    Give Steve James, RPT a call at 847.370.3754

    He makes 3D printed replacements for these flanges. They also fit WNG shanks if you want to use those. He's working on a set for me right now for a 121. 

    Peter Grey Piano Doctor 



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    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    (603) 686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
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  • 11.  RE: Chickering Brass hammer flange conversion to wooden flanges

    Posted 15 days ago
    Hi, Peter,

    Very timely.

    Thank you very much.

    Kind regards.

    Horace




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