Restoration of a Fischer Ampico for the Hicks family
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118) The strings have been removed. A paper pattern
was made for the string winder from the plate and bridges. This will allow the
string winder to make the strings exactly to fit the piano; taking into consideration
every slight variation that is unique to this piano. The scale design of this piano
will also receive modernization during the string making process in order to make the
finished tone even better than it was when it was new.
119) The plate has been removed revealing the original stained and decaying pin
block. Index cards are being made so that the new pin block will fit the case of the
piano perfectly. Holes were drilled through the plate and into the original block
before the plate was removed. These holes are duplicated onto these indexes off of
the old pin block after the plate is out. The original pin block is what we call a
"floater." It did not attach to the body of the piano. Rather it was
simply screwed to the under side of the plate. The new block will be glued and
doweled into the piano on three sides as well as being screwed to the plate. This is
the way that Steinway makes their pin blocks. It yields a more solid tone and a more
stable tuning. It is a good deal of extra work but I would not send a piano out of
my shop without fitting the pin block in this way unless the design of the piano forbid
this high level of reconstruction. Due to the mounting system of pianos sold to
Amphion for the installation of the Ampico mechanism, there will be a need for some
redesign in order to make the block a full fit.
120) This picture demonstrates one of the failures on the part of the recent
restringing. The original decal is pictured here. Additional clear coat was
simply placed over the old varnish. The color of the board is a horrid orange and
the decal is full of cracks. In addition, the lacquer that was used was probably a
catalyzed material. It was so hard that it had already started to crack and it was
so difficult to remove that it tended to tear at the fibers of the wood rather than
release during the scraping process. Such a hard and inflexible material would
actually interfere with the vibration of the sound board. Only in areas where it had
been literally poured over the old varnish did it release with any degree of ease.
You can see, here, a crack has been repaired with the use of epoxy. This is not an
ideal repair but it was done properly and is sound. It will be retained.
Since all the shim repair has been done already and since the mechanism had been fully
reinstalled before the decision to rebuild the piano was made, the board will not be dried
again. It is fairly certain that any cracks that are going to develop in this board
have already done so and have been dealt with. During this rebuilding process, the
epoxy shim repairs will simply be dealt with cosmetically to blend them into the rest of
the board as seamlessly as possible.
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121) Another example of the poor job done by the last
rebuilder. He didn't even pull the plate! His clear coat material was
literally poured over the board through the openings in the plate; coating old varnish,
dirt and all. This is certainly not the look of a freshly restrung piano. At
least not the look it should have.
122) This is a picture of the edge of the pin block that meets the plate. One
point where the wood is separating is indicated. Also, the contact points where the
block touched the plate are indicated. More points of contact can be seen in the
form of black patches on the wood. This was a poor fit to begin with. The new
block will have a 100% fit of the wood to the bearing lip of the plate. This is an
excellent example of the reason you should replace all old pin blocks of this age during a
restringing operation. Although the wood was still solid enough to hold the pins
nicely for now, once the block was actually removed from the piano it became obvious that
there were sufficient flaws in the glue joints to indicate that the block was not going to
be able to retain that tension much longer. Even when an old pin block seems to be
in good enough shape to reuse it is very poor economy and a very great risk to attempt to
repin it. There is far too much internal stress to trust to 80 year old wood and
glue joints.
123) Another failure of the last rebuilder. The damper guide rails were not
rebushed. They weren't even cleaned. Many of the dampers were making loud
clicking noises as they slopped back and forth in these loose bushings. A couple of
bushings that had apparently fallen out altogether had been sort of redone by the last
rebuilder. However, the new bushing cloth he had inserted was very untidy and wasn't
even glued down!
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124) The board has been scraped free of all the old varnish
and the hard, inflexible lacquer that had been placed on it. All the original bridge
pins have been removed and the bridges are being resurfaced with a piece of glass as the
sanding caul. This will eliminate all string marks in the tops of the bridges.
125) The next step in restoring the bridges is to restate the notches with a razor
sharp chisel so that the strings terminate at the bridge pin and at the wood of the bridge
at the same point; exactly in the center of the bridge pin holes. This, in
combination with the new, tighter, bridge pins will clean up the sound, minimize false
beats and increase sustain.
126) Restoring the shanks and flanges and preparing them for new hammers. In
the case of this set, we discovered that many of the knuckle underfelts were moth eaten.
Since the cost of the work was as much as the owner wanted to spend already, I was
able to find identical knuckles among my boxes of old action parts. This picture
shows some of the work involved in transferring the restorable knuckles onto these shanks.
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127) All the shanks are off the action and in order.
During restoration, the pinning of the hinges was checked and redone as needed to bring
the friction in the flanges to 4 grams. The knuckles that were moth eaten were
replaced. Then all the knuckles received bolstering to restore their shape under the
areas that had been flattened by the jacks. Then the leather was lightly sanded in
order to remove contaminants and to remove all imperfections in the surface caused by
contact with the whippens. In this way, the action can be realigned to the new
strings and the knuckles will mate perfectly to the whippens with no problems. The
whippens also received fresh dry film lubricant. If necessary, the knuckles will
also receive powdered Teflon for lubrication. Finally, all but the guide hammers
were removed from the shanks and the old glue cleaned off and the shanks set to exactly
the original size they had when new. Even the original knurling was able to be
salvaged.
128) Putting the shanks back onto the action. You can see that the guide
hammers are still on the appropriate shanks. You can also see that the sand paper
strip which is glued to the action rail that keeps the shanks from slipping about has been
replaced as well.
129) Traveling the shanks so they hit the strings exactly square. This allows
them to impart the maximum amount of power to the strings.
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130) The lifter felts on the backs of the keys which the
player stack touches when it plays the action have all lost their glue joints. It
would have been easier to just replace the felt outright. However, the originals
have a dimple of compression in them which fits the capstan of the lifter finger on the
player stack exactly. By making sure I reglued these into their original places, I
was able to keep this compressed felt in place. This will allow the regulation of
the player stack to remain where I put it even after a lot of playing. New felt
would compress for quite some time making additional regulation necessary in a few months.
131) The front key bushings were a bit too loose. New bushings are being
installed. Here you see the clamping cauls in place. The center bushings were
still as good as when they were new so they were left in place.
132) The previous rebuilder took no pains to restore the damper guide rails or the
damper wires. The wires were heavily corroded. This picture shows them after
they have been properly polished as they should have been when it was recently restrung.
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133) The previous rebuilder coated the damper heads with
some odd sort of material which made them too shiny and also showed a tremendous amount of
very obvious dust stuck in it. All this had to be rubbed out and then repolished to
get them looking their best. It would still have been better if the last person had
left them alone. The original finish could easily have been nicely restored and
shined up if they hadn't put this odd material on them. It took, in fact, an entire
work day to repair the finish on the damper heads.
134) The new key bushings are dry and the cauls removed.
135) The capstan screws after they were polished.
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136) Bleaching the ivory. The ivories were sanded with
600 grit paper, then bleached and finally polished to a high gloss.
137) Two of the keys were chipped.
138) To repair these chips, they first must be enlarged and the edges shaped so that
it will retain the repair material properly. It does make the chips look worse for
the moment.
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139) The finished repairs to the chipped ivory. When
the owner saw the finished keyboard, he couldn't find the repairs. I had to show him
which keys had been chipped.
140) The restored ivories.
141) The original pin block laying up against a new double sized pin block blank.
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142) The original pin block next to the new pin block which
has just come off the band saw and is ready to start being fitted to the plate.
143) The last rebuilder did nothing to restore the termination points of the
strings. In fact, the capo bar was full of burrs which cause nasty noises in the
strings as well as being coated with some sort of "crud" which most certainly
made tuning very difficult. The agraffs also needed to be reshaped since they were
full of burrs as well.
144) The bass section of the pin block is offset a bit. This shows a piece of
Delignit which has been fitted to the bass section. It is now coated with glue and
about to be clamped to the rest of the pin block, using the plate itself as a clamping
caul.
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145) The fitted block. When done, the block fits the
lip of the plate over 100% of the surface. The original block only touched the lip
of the plate over about 5% of its surface area.
146) The face of the block must be fitted to the plate as well. Here, you can
see how some of the layers of the block have been sanded through in the process of
fitting. Also, this picture shows that all the holes that need to be drilled in the
block have been transferred onto the new block. This includes the index holes that
were drilled into the plate before the piano was taken apart.
147) Drilling out all the holes in the new pin block.
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148) This shows how the new pin block will fit the case of
the piano exactly. The original block missed almost the entire piano and simply
floated under the plate. The new block will be literally glued to the case of the
piano.
149) The reshaped and polished capo bars.
150) The plate before reguilding. The material that the last rebuilder put on
this plate was full of runs, drips, missed spots and a terribly deep and closely packed
orange peel. It looked positively awful! The material, in addition, was not
appropriate for guilding plates. When the new lacquer was applied, any residue of
the last reguilding material would cause the new finish to crawl. In addition, the
plate decal was never replaced. The half worn off decal was clear coated over.
This also looked terrible.
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151) This shows some of the areas that were missed
altogether.
152) It took hours of heavy sanding to get the very thick clear and gold that was
put on the plate by the last rebuilder. The clear was so incredibly thick that any
slight impact on the surface would cause very deep chips to fall off the plate.
153) The newly and properly guilded plate before clear coating. Clear coating
this plate proved very difficult. If lacquer with enough thinner in it was applied
to the surface, any areas that had any residue of the last rebuilders material on would
crawl and peel. It took several "reguildings" to find just the right
consistency and spraying method that would clear coat the surface beautifully without the
residue of the other material getting in the way.
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154) The sound board after it was scraped and sanded.
This is bare wood in this picture.
155) This picture shows what the board looked like when the last rebuilder had
finished it. This is actually the board with the sodium hydroxide coat in place in
preparation for bleaching. This is what the board would look like again if I simply
finished it again without bleaching as the last guy did.
156) The damper guide rails before restoration. They had not been attended to
on the last rebuilding as the should have been.
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159)
157) The guide rails after refinishing. They are now
ready to be rebushed.
158) Mounting the new Isaac Cadenza hammers onto the action.
159) This picture shows the keys being regulated to the player stack's lifter
fingers. Without tight clearances at this point, the player mechanism would have
trouble play quick repetition or very soft passages.
© Copyright 2010 {David Rodgers' Piano Rebuilding}. All Rights Reserved.