•A piano technician friend of mine is seeking a source of: 1. Four nickel or brass plated crown (capped) nuts for the plate of a 6' Krakauer grand. The 4th one is recessed within the stringing pattern, and likely has a slot in it for a screwdriver. He believes the hold-down bolts are all 3/8" coarse...

•Just a quick email to let everyone know that I am in complete agreement with everything (excepting one point) D.L. Bullock wrote in 020329 MMDigest concerning the stringing of pianos. Having worked for a Kawai dealer (and owning the very best Kawai GS-40 grand you ever encountered) I truly believe ...

•In response to the forwarded letter by Jayne Paris concerning her Faventia barrel piano, I have been restoring these for some years. Normal restoration included the replacement of the pinblock with a "Delignit pinblock", then repining and stringing, including having the wound bass strings duplicate...

•[ Ref. 110220 MMDigest, Value of Ragtime Nickelodeon > Are there cheaper alternatives to a complete re-stringing and pin job? If the strings are in good condition, i.e., not rusty, and the bass strings are not dead, you may be able to re-pin it without complete restringing. This is assuming that th...

•I recently tuned my Weber Unika for a visiting group from MBSI. My tuner was moving his piano shop into a new building and couldn't spare the time to come do it. I normally do all my repairs and re-stringing, etc., and bring the pianos up to pitch. But then after I tune them, I call in the pro and ...

•Joyce Brite asks about changing piano casters for modern wheels. We have done this several times to make them easier to move about the museum. We use a 'stringing bench' -- the term used in UK, anyway. It's basically a fold-up steel framework with curved skids and two wheels. You erect the contrapt...

•[ Most problems encountered in restoring pianos lie outside the realm [ of MMDigest, which usually deals with just the player problems. But [ here's a situation where the stringing scale is unique to a player [ piano. -- Robbie Bass String Diameters in Mason & Hamlin Ampico Pianos Many string scale...

•I've installed a few humidity control systems in non-player uprights, and in my experience they help somewhat in stabilizing the tuning between visits and have postponed at least one re-stringing job. I've yet to encounter one in a player piano. Dammp-Chaser (the most prominent, and perhaps the onl...

•I have been very interested in the articles about bass strings for reproducing pianos as I am about to embark on replacing those on my 1930 5-foot 4-inch Knabe Ampico B. I must say that I am surprised that no records appear to exist about the original stringing of these pianos (at least in the UK)...

•This is a bit of a shot in the dark. I have a Symphonion Model 48 disc music box with lid veneer issues and loss of some of the stringing on the lid. The lid dimensions are approximately 13" long x 11-1/2" deep. The lid has walnut burl veneer, the word Symphonion inlaid in the center, and white str...

Damon Atchison wrote: > I've never restored a PIANO in the player piano itself, has anyone done > this by a book? I don't have $5,000 for a pro job. I followed Art Reblitz's book and got good results in my Marshall and Wendall Ampico, which included doing everything from re-stringing upwards. I must...

•Hi All, I want to thank Jody for clarifying Telnet. Since I started using a computer just a few years ago and the Internet just last year, the whole learning process has been a steep uphill climb. It makes me wish I had become involved a long time ago when I was told that the computer was the wave ...

•Thanks for everyone's response. I don't believe I have fully explained what I wanted to do. This piano I am building is unlike anything I have ever done. It is actually built from three junk pianos. I guess you could call it a mutt. I rebuilt the piano to record and playback my arrangements from th...

•This story about German music wire was related by Dr. Clarence Hickman, of American Piano Company, when interviewed by Nelson Bardon circa 1960. The interviews by Nelson Bardon were re-printed in "The Ampico Reproducing Piano", edited by Richard J. Howe, published by Music Box Society International...

•Wonderful to see so many responses in the field of piano wire and sustain pedal and sound of pianos. One more comment from me: In South Africa, we have tons of old pianos from before the First War to 1960. We have more German pianos than American pianos, and it is a common fact here that the bass s...

•All bolts, plate bolts and screws should always be tight, as well as all pin block screws. BUT, nose bolts should never be used to adjust downbearing. It is designed to support the cast iron plate at its normal relieved position before stringing. Before you decide to try adjusting the downbearing b...

•HI All, As much as I like conveying the good news about being self- employed and working as a 'one-man band', it's not all peaches and cream. And since I believe very strongly in finding the good in any bad situation, I present to you the following scenario. After stringing an upright player today...

•Hi gang. While I was cursing the web today, I went to the web site of the Piano Technician's Guild (PTG). On a link I found and downloaded a program called Tunelab 97. It is shareware, and well worth the money. This program requires a '486 or better processor, Windows, and a microphone and sound ca...

•What should the full soundboard - out restoration of an 88-note player cost (ballpark)? Completely rebuilding the instrument, inside and out? Let's assume, for the sake of the question, that the ribs have pulled away from the soundboard, the soundboard has several cracks, the plate is in good shape...

•I have a church that wants to sell a gutted, great big, Weber Themodist Grand. It looks exactly like many of the early Duo Art Webers except there is no place for snakebite levers or Theme, or Soft/dance levers. It is the one with the heavy looking legs and case. It has the cast iron keybed, mahoga...