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!