the problems multiply

So. As the author of Beowulf puts it.

My plan to put on a fresh set of shiny new key tops is quashed by necessity. By simple arithmetic. The joys of restoring an antique instrument!

Presently, piano dimensions are somewhat standardized. Certainly one company may make a 6 foot 8 inch instrument and another a 6 foot 9 inch, but some things, like the octave span, are fixed. Nowadays, that span is 6 1/2 inches.

You may recall that I noticed that some of my replacement ivory keys, which had been salvaged from superannuated instruments, were a little wide. I began to take measurements, and do some internet research, and I found out that 6 1/2 standard for octaves. That means each white key top is 28/32 of an inch in width, or 7/8.
However, my Mathushek has an octave of 6 3/8 inches, and keys 27/32 of an inch.

So, ho, that means a new set of keys will not install on my keyboard. I am left now with gluing back the snaggle toothed keys, and using a few of the replacement keys that are narrower than modern standard.

Which means I need to see what kind of stuff I can use to fill the chunks missing in my keys. Some kind of plastic filler that will dry hard, and which I can sand down, at least to fill the holes. Oh well, I wanted to keep the ivory anyway, now I have to.

I was just joking yesterday with my friend Brad OB, when we were watching a TV show. Someone said, "Well, on to Plan B," and I said, "That's never a good sign."
But on to Plan B it is.

And there is a real problem that I have not yet discussed with you folks, which I have no real idea how to finesse. It involves the strings, so I will put that off for the time being.

contemporaneous advert

New York Daily Tribune Wed Sept 11, 1867

A GREAT SOUL IN A SMALL BODY,

NEW INVENTION IN PIANOS.

THE MATHUSHEK PIANOS recently invented by Mr. Frederick Mathushek (author of the principal improvements in pianos), differ from all Others in having the strings cross the frame in both directions. This equalizes the strain upon the frame, and insures greater durability and longer continuance in tune than can be had by any other method. The BRIDGE also, runs the whole length of the sounding-board, an entirely new feature, which gives greater power and better tone than is found in any other instruments.

The smallest size square, the Colibri, four feet nine inches long, seven octaves, equals in all respects the full size of other makers; while the full size, the ORCHESTRAL, is equal to any CONCERT GRAND.

FRANZ SCHLOTTER, the eminent pianist, says: "The COLIBRI I consider the chef d’oeuvre in the musical world, its tone is not equaled by the largest sized square or upright Pianos of any factory in this country."

H. MOLLENHAUER, of  the Conservatory of Music, says: “ I with great pleasure bear my unqualified testimony to the great superiority of the Mathushek Pianos over all others."

Many other testimonials equally strong have been freely given. Please call and examine, or send for Descriptive Circular to. BARLOW

Guess who's back--/--/--Shady's back!

I have been away for a while.
I still have to get the new habit of blogging regularly. I have been working on the instrument, but not sitting down and recording it.

So, what have I done? (with pictures)


1)  I finally got my parts, so I reassembled the keyboard, with new felt punchings.

The keyboard still needs to be leveled, but before I do that, I have to deal with the broken key tops.  More of that later.

So, I put all the keys back, and reinstalled the Hammer Shank Rail, preparatory to reassembling the instrument, for a trial. Here is what it looked like before I put it back together.

 In the meantime, I have been working on my patio garden. Here are pictures:

   So, what I have to do now is make some key decisions about the keytops. (See what I did there? That's cause I am a writer!) I ordered so far, 14 ivories from International Piano Supply, at $4 a pop. Half of them are too white. I am going to write and see if I can send them back for some yellower ones. I am also considering swapping some of the extreme high and low keys, for the missing keys in the center of the keyboard, and then putting the replacements on the ends of the keyboard. Unfortunately, on this instrument almost half the white keys could use replacing. Certainly no fewer than 21 of the 55 white keys are visibly broken on the edges. There are two I could overlook, and three I have filed the small chips smooth, but maybe I should just put a set of plastic keytops on for the visual beauty. Ivory is nice if it is uniform, but that may be a problem. I dont know yet.

  Anyway, I put it back together, and now, for the first time on the internet, is the sound of 1867.  This is David Sonsara, my teacher, playing the Beethoven variations on a theme by Paisiello, just the sort of music appropriate to this instrument. Take it away, David!

 




As you can see, it plays very nicely. It needs key leveling, as I said before, and it needs regulation very badly, but the worst key, middle G, I think I fixed. The hammer back-check needed adjustment. It was impeding the rise of the hammer on the key strike. I bent the wire back a couple millimeters, and I think that solved that problem. But I won't know until I put it all back together again, and that won't be for a while, now.

 I am at a kind of standstill right now. I have to decide what to do with the keyboard, so I can level it, then I can regulate the mechanism, and refinish the hammers, and then I can put it back together to see how it works.

Then the strings!

Waiting for the Postman

I guess I should add an entry, for the benefit of my millions of readers. I just made a big order, felt and paper punchings to level the keyboard. And a bunch of miscellaneous pieces of felt, and another dozen ivory key tops. Now I will have 14. I counted 25 chipped keys, with about 11 of them very badly chipped. I guess I am committed to ivory.

I have finished polishing the 85 individual keys with 00 steel wool, and brushed out the flanges and pin holes. Some interesting finds. Two of them are signed. The 85th key is signed in pencil, on the side, "Dahlquist". And the first key is signed in pencil "Dahlquist", but in a different handwriting! What to make of that? Father and son? The foreman wrote Dahlquist's name on the job, and he signed it at the end? He had a stroke between key 1 and key 85??? Key No. 1 is also stamped with the name E. Larson, with a punch stamp. And the first set of keys has 5 and 3 punched on them in the vicinity of the action. Wish I knew what it all meant.

Of course, I haven't been able to play it for a month now. Don't know when I will be able to again. Probably in a couple months, when I get the action all regulated.

But I have been playing my Kawai, which I was badmouthing so bad in the first entry. I should apologize to my poor little upright. It's a very nice piano. I and preparing for piano club next Saturday. I will play Diabelli variation No. 2, which is a real devil, and the first movement of Sonata VIII by Friedrich Wilhelm Rust, my current favorite obscure composer.

Piano Club is a monthly social for about a dozen or two of us who like to play, but are not Paderewski, so we play for each other. It is a very diverse group of men and women, many quite proficient in various genres. About half are like me, slaves to the page, and half can improvise freely from a lead sheet, or ad libitum. I am so jealous, I wish I could do that. It is a mystery to me why I can sit here and type out my thoughts as words on this keyboard, but I can't type out my thoughts as music on the piano.

But having joined Piano Club has changed my entire outlook on practice. Now that I have the prospect of performing, I can't overlook my little glitches, like I did when I was just playing for myself. Now I focus on the mechanics of the finger fumble, and figure out where I got lost. When I was playing just for myself, I just ran the right stuff through my head, and ignored my actual performance. But you can't do that for other people. So I am still not Paderewski, but I am learning how to study for performance now, and making leaps and strides in my execution.

Yay. Also I get to share my obscure music with other people, which is even better. Next month I am doing Gottshchalk's "Morte: She is Dead", and after that Rossini's "Une Caresse a ma Femme". And I think after that, the Froberger Lamento for Ferdinand III.

someone else's story

http://www.burningbuilding.com/piano.htm

Here is a funny link. It's a story about an expedition working its way through the insides of an upright piano.

Clean Keys and Dirty Keys

Nothing much these days. I am regrouping, and back to slow piece by piece cleaning.

Having removed the hammer shank rail, and pulled out the keys, I am polishing them one by one with 00 grade steel wool. They come off the instrument grey with age and dust, and with the application of steel wool and elbow grease, they are restored to their warm reddish gold hue. The tops are thick with dust, the sides with crystalized sap that has exuded over the last century and a half, and the bottoms are stained from the felts they sit on. Then I spend five minutes on one, and it glows.

I set up my table, and watch an episode of standup comedy on streaming Netflix. Now I wear gloves, after the first couple sessions of chewing up my finger tips with steel wool. I brush off the loose dust with a cotton cloth, then rub down each surface with the wool. Some of the keys are stained from a spill, but that comes out with a good polishing.

It takes five or six minutes to do one key. Ten an hour. Eighty five keys in eight and a half hours. I have about forty left to finish. I have been doing six to ten each morning. Hey, it's my hobby not my job!

I have to order the front rail and balance rail felt and paper punchings. Then I can level the keyboard, and one major task will have been accomplished. Oh, I also have a handful of ivory key tops to put on. I don't know if I should replace the broken ivories, or if I should just install a new set of plastic key tops. I am inclined to the ivory, for authenticity, but a set of new bright keys sure brings a piano to life.

Decisions, decisions.

Well, after my first setback, I took a few days to regroup. I decided to let the dampers wait for a while, and take a look at the action. So, I headed to the thrift store for a work table. I found a nice one for a bargain price, and brought it home.


I removed the key-bed/action, and set it on my table. I took a couple pictures of it like that, but they seem to have disappeared from my camera.
So, first thing, figure out how to get the keys out, for leveling. Hah! Easier said than done. Those keys were locked in there by the hammer rail, and of the 85 keys, I was able to wrangle only about 25 out of the middle section, where there was enough wiggle room to get the first key out, and then contort the next and the next, until I had a set removed.

Boy, was that keybed filthy. There was a hundred fifty years of dust and lint under the keys. The dust was as thick as the felt punchings that sit at the bottom of the key front rail. Nasty!

I took the soft brush to it, and cleaned it all out.

Then, one by one, I removed the felt and paper front rail punchings and ccarefully set them aside in order, white keys in front, black keys in back. Except for being dirty, the felts are in quite good condition.

But now I was stymied. I could not pry any more of the keys out of the action. Now I had to examine the action more closely, to see what needed to be removed.

This is such an elegant little machine. It has the barest minimum of moving parts, unlike modern machines that may have thirty to seventy pieces for each action. There is not much that is liable to regulation. There is a check screw, and there is a pair of adjusting screws for the jack flange, to move it up or down. But that is it!

Again, I am amazed at how well made this is. It is entirely of wood, except for the screws and the cast iron frame. But it is absolutely solid, and the felt parts, the bumpers and so on, are in great condition. The buckskin parts are a little rough, but I can polish them down. I am wondering how many parts I am really going to have to replace in the action. Not a lot.

HIstorico-philosphocal Musings

My first, abortive, excited foray into restoration, has, so to speak, set me aback, a bit.

This one job, the damper felts, is not going to be the work of an afternoon, as with a modern piano, with standardized, rectilinear felts, that can be glued onto a flat damper head surface.

This is an antique instrument. It is close to 150 years old. It was built by hand, in a "new", "modern" factory in New Haven, Connecticut, around 1867. The factory made all its parts, from casting the frame, to cutting the wood action parts. I don't know if they pressed their own felt. Probably they contracted it. New England at the time was the major industrial manufactory for textiles and fabrics.

This was the post-war period when the war time industrialists were converting to peace time production, expanding west with the railroads and the civilizing mission. A number of investors came to Frederick Mathushek with the idea of starting a company to produce his designs. Mathushek was a German immigrant, who was highly regarded as a piano engineer. According to some accounts he invented overstringing, although I guess the Steinway Company first used it in production models..
Mathushek was well known as a designer of scales, that is balancing the interacting factors of length, weight and tension of the sequential strings, to produce the best sound, in a given wooden box.
Pianos produce sound when hammers hit the strings, and the strings vibrate. If you used the same weight of strings from top to bottom, the piano would have to be forty feet long, for the bass strings. If you used the same wound strings from bottom to top, the short strings would be too thick and heavy to vibrate at all.
And if you used the same string length from bottom to top, and tuned them by tightening them, like with a rubber band, you would have to pull the top strings so tight, they would break.

So, Mathushek designed a couple of square pianos for production. He designed the Orchestral Grand, which was a standard square grand, over six feet by four feet, and seven and a half octaves.

He also designed the Colibri Model, which this one is. It is a smaller instrument, with three fewer keys at the bottom end, saving about a foot of length in the instrument.

He opened the factory in New Haven in 1866. I have seen a catalogue from 1871, and all the instruments have fancy french legs. I searched for a long time until I found a picture of one with octagonal legs like mine, with the note that those legs went out of style after 1867. And since my serial number is 3003, I am venturing to date my instrument to 1867 or 1868 at the latest. Paul Robinson of Acme Piano Company in San Diego, want to put it a year or so later. I don't know how many instruments they produced in a year. More than a thousand? More than three a day? Somehow that doesn't seem likely. Who knows? If anyone has any information, let me know.

So, back to philosophico- part. I am only gradually beginning to grok the fullness of my instrument. It is a beautiful piece of 19th Century machinery. The cabinet is subdued, not extravagant as American Victorian furniture, and pianos, often were. The machine part, the action and the frame, are very elegantly designed. For instance, the damper assembly has lifters for each individual set of strings. But since the strings are overstrung, that is, the bass strings cross over the treble strings, there is a space of about six inches along the damper assembly where there are no strings to damp. Even so, Mathushek designed his assembly with six dummy damper arms to fill in the space. They lift when the damper pedal is depressed, and from the appearance, you would never know there is a gap in the line. Instead, you see an assembly with an attractive curve, and elegant long parallel arms.

So there is a design aesthetic going on here, as well. As I begin to understand the design and the mechanism, and compare it to modern instruments, I begin to understand the mind of the designer. This instrument has all the parts of any piano, but they are completely idiosyncratic, and I will have to figure out their quirks in order to restore this instrument to even 75 or 80% of its original musicality.

Oh, dear, first setback.

I decided to work on a section of the dampers, specifically, the seven dampers between C and F-sharp, below middle C, which are the last seven of the overstrung notes, and are bi-chords, that is, two strings to each note, and are wire. The rest of the overstrung sections are four wound bi-chords, and then twenty wound mono-chords, down to the low C. (Remember, this instrument has only 85 keys, and ends at C top and bottom.)

Well, the damper felts on there now are pretty distorted from their original shapes, after all these years. Using a protractor and graph paper, i drew a pattern for the shape of the felts. Oh, before all that, I had to measure the angle of the damper arms to the strings, which varies from 103 degrees to 110 degrees. So I made my diagrams and charts, and figured out how to cut my felts, to fit the peculiar shapes. Here are some pictures:


So, I cut my felts 1 1/8" on my little guillotine, and made the first 110 degree cuts, and after a couple discards, I had a set.



Here is a picture of the felts placed on the strings, in place, with the damper arms removed.



So I had my set of seven dampers, one of them trimmed into an irregular heptagon.








Meanwhile, I had removed the old felts from the damper arms with the simple application of hot water with a q-tip, and the glue easily dissolved, letting me peel off the fabric. Here are the clean damper arms laid out.


I let them dry out while I went to work today. Then, when I came home, I began to lay them out to reassemble them. This is when I began to realize that they were too wide, and would need to be trimmed by about a 16th of an inch on each side. But the real discovery was that the fancy bi-chord felt I was using, it got caught between the strings, and sounded them when it lifted. The original had flat felt pads, and I thought I would improve on Mr. Mathushek's design. What a Fool!
So, it's back to the design board again. Clearly every felt is going to have to be individually shaped.

Ah, well, that's what a hobby is all about!

I got a nice long straight-edge today, and a fresh bottle of glue, and some colored pipe cleaners so I can easily label strings and tuning pins and action parts and all.

But I am committed now. It is not playable any more. Work begins!

I got my first parts today! I am so excited! The history will have to go on hold while I talk about this.

The first job I decided to do was replace the damper felts. On this instrument, the dampers are on top of the strings, and fall by gravity. So they are easily accessible, without involving the rest of the machine.
Unlike the dampers on modern machines, which are generally rectilinear, these are wildly canted, each one, and has as many as six sides, requiring to be trimmed to fit the acute angle between the damper arm and the string, as well as to miss the swing of the adjacent dampers, which are each set at a slightly different angle.

Whew!

So, I am going to measure each one, with a protractor, and a fine ruler, and plot out each one on graph paper, before I cut it.

Oh, the parts? I got a strip of single string damper felt, and one of double string felt, and a set of flat felts, pre cut in graduated sizes. THen I got a felt cutter, like a little guillotine, don't stick your finger in there, kiddo, and since I needed $10 to reach the minimum purchase to avoid the $10 small purchase surcharge, I ordered two replacement ivories, to see how they would be. Very nice as it turns out, one is somewhat lighter than mine, but the other is almost the same shade of ivory.

Here is a tour of the damper assembly.




Well phooey, I took pictures of my new parts, and a couple close-ups of the first and last damper arms with the trimmed felts on them, but I can't seem to locate them on my camera. Piece of crap.

That's the news. I will take new pictures this weekend when I start working. I still have to get some tools, and this-n-thats, and I am not going to do anything until I get it figured out first. I have worked on machines all my life. This is an especially nice one. All the wood parts are in great shape, no warping in long thin pieces, It's just the fabric parts and the strings, that need replacement.

Update: The piano tuner came by last Friday, and tuned it to its pitch, about a half tone flat. None of the strings has gone wildly flat, which is a good sign. I will tune it again in a couple months. Unless I have replaced the strings by then. Paul Robinson, at Acme Piano in San Diego, told me that after this piano was built, improvements in engineering led to piano wire with significantly higher tensile strength, and that it would be best to find specialized string. He is on the look out for string for a square grand he is working on, and says he has a lead on a guy in England. So I may get new strings in a couple months. Also, wound strings need to be particularly built for each note, for each different piano.

Chat later.
Love you, mean it!

Here is video of the piano at my house. This was taken on a little Polaroid v-cam I got at Pic-n-Save. I will show progress with this, over time.

My friends are saying, where are the pictures? These are the piano at the store, taken with my telephone. Pretty huh?

So, where was I?

Okay, I was examining the piano in the thrift store. The name decal was very faint, but I could just make out "Mathushek" and New Haven Connecticut. I had never heard that name before.
So, anyway, I started thinking, and pretty soon was craving this instrument. I like old, odd and unusual things, and this was that. It looked to me like something I could work on, since I had worked on two pianos before.

Let's see, first was a big old massive upright grand from the 20s or so, made in Boston. I cant' remember the manufacturer. On that one, I replaced all the bridle tapes, and a bunch of the leather butts. The next was an old bird-cage style upright, which I bought for $50 from a house in Mission Hills. It was a rat's next inside, literally. I had to vacuum out all the little rat turds and the fluff from the rat nests. They had chewed through some of the actions, and the instrument was no playable. Of course, it was a pile of crap to begin with, but it was a interesting hobby to restore this thing. The only good thing about it was the finish was a nice veneer, and there was a little marquetry on the cabinet and two brass candle holders. THat one, I had a lot of restoration to do. I had to cannibalize pieces here and there, and in the end the top two keys had to be sacrificed for parts for the rest of the scale. My friend John McCormack fabricated parts for me in his garage wood shop. And I got it playing again, for what it was worth. It wouldn't hold its tune at all. So I eventually sold it to a furniture scavenger for $100. 200% return, plus hours of entertainment! Such a deal.
So, I figured I was ready to do a real restoration now, and this one could be the one. It fit all my requirements: it was a grand action. It was small, even for a square grand which usually are in excess of 6 feet by 4our feet. This is about 5'8'' by 3'8". It was made for the kind of music I like to play, 18th and 19th Century salon music. It was certainly distinctive.
I began to agonize. I went to my friend Brad, and weighed the pros and cons, needing another outside point of view, so I didn't carry myself away. The only cons I could see was that it was a 150 year old instrument, and in the condition any 150 year old machine would be in. But on the pro side, it was actually in pretty good shape, and its defects were going to be my hobby, so the more the merrier!!!
I went back to the piano store and looked at the three grands again. But I no longer was even considering them, now. It had turned into the Mathushek or nothing.
I went back to the thrift store with my music, this time, and played some of the stuff I am working on. It handled everything I tried out on it.
I went to the manager, to see if he had any information about the provenance, but he could tell me nothing. He did tell me it had been on the floor for 6 months, and he had reduced it by half over that time. I asked him if he was willing to cut me a deal, and he offered to knock another 10% off, which would cover the tax.
By now, it had been perhaps a week. I was agonizing. I thought to give them $50 for a first refusal, in case someone else got interested in it. Foolish me! Nobody but an idiot like me would want that piece of crap!
I don't remember now how I made the final decision, but really, I decided the first day I saw it, and realized it worked. The last time I had seen a square piano for sale in town must have been around 1979 or so. It was a large one, and had a couple locked drawers in it. I imagined finding an original Chopin manuscript in it or something! But I was not in a position to buy then.
So, opened my tin can under the bed again, and got some bucks out. Not a lot, after all, it cost less than a new computer! Went over to the store, bought it, they put on the Sold tag, and hooked me up with the piano mover, who would come by in about three days to pick it up for me.
So, yay! I bought a piano! What a crazy thing!

HOW I GOT MY NEW PIANO

I had been thinking about getting a new piano for about a year, I guess. I was beginning to be dissatisfied with the touch of my Kawai upright, which, although it was the nicest piano I had ever had, was not responding the way I wanted. It has a very limited range below piano, and also, it has a distinct buzz in a couple of notes in the higher octaves. Still, it sounds very nice, and the regulation is still excellent, and, if I play mezzo forte instead of mezzo piano, it is because I have to play piano for pianissimo.

So, anyway, I had been test driving fabulous pianos in the piano stores in town. Quarter of a million dollar Bechstein, a Steinway that played like warm butter, a nine foot Chickering from the old days of Chickering, and the usual run of Petrofs and Yamahas and Baldwins. I wasn’t interested in a shiny new Chinese piano, and realistically a shiny new piano isn’t in my entertainment budge.

Also, I wanted the grand piano action. Getting a new upright would nt solve my problem. But again, realistically, I can’t put even a baby grand in my apartment.

So, I wasn’t making any commitments.

But it never rains but it pours. I was in SDOPiano.com, down in Mission Vally, and started talking with Rick, there. He had a handful of grands he was trying to move, and I was still being tempted. He showed me three little grands he would trade me straight for my Kawai upright. Wow! What a decision. There was an old Baldwin, and old Aelolian, and an old Struck, in the back, with a very unattractive worn finish.

Boy! I tried them all, played my music on them, some Beethoven, the Wagner sonata, some Mozart, Donizetti’s Ricordanza, that demands really good tuning. They all had their good points and their bad points, except for the Aelolian which has no good points. The old Struck, from the 30s, was probably the best instrument. And what a deal….a straight trade! I was in a pickle. Still, they were 5 foot grands.

In the middle of all this decision making, I happened to be at a GSDBA social event at the Gossip Grill on University in Uptown, and had parked across the street. So, after a cocktail and a little glad handing, I headed out, and idly thought to check out the Baras Thrift store, right across the street. They had, from time to time, a piano, and I always check out the thrift stores, because you never know what you will find. I got my Kawai at the Salvation Army for a real deal. I had idly popped in, saw this shiny ebony upright with golden harp and scarlet felts and copper strings, and undented hammers…and my heart went pit-a-pat. I ran home, grabbed some bucks from the tin can under the bed, and raced back, because I knew it would not last there another hour. And it was the best thrift store deal I have ever gotten. But that is another story, in another thrift store.

In this thrift store, I once saw a pretty baby grand in maple, or oak, and thought about getting it. But my piano technician took one look at it and told me this horror story about a local piano tech who would oil the strings, thus effectively ruining them. He was expelled from the piano tech’s guild, but still held himself out and practiced in town. This was one of his instruments. I declined the purchase.

So getting back to the narrative present, I popped into Baras thrift store, and what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a square grand piano, setting there in display room, gathering dust, and surrounded by other thrift store stuff. Like and electron to a positive ion, I zipped over, and ran my hands over the keyboard. It was out of tune, but not wildly. I played up and down, the chromatic scales. Every key worked. I played four rapid staccato notes on each key. They all worked. I played the theme from the Diabelli Variations. This was a playable piano. I examined it. The cabinet was grimy. The instrument was obviously from the late 19^th century. But from all appearances, all the parts were there, and it all worked. The regulation was shot, of course, but there was only one missing piece I could see: the middle of three ornamental knurled nuts holding the damper stop bar. Not a functional deficit.

More later.

This is my new blog, about my new hobby