Tiny cracks around bridge pins
Jeremy Walker
My search for the perfect used grand may be over. I found a piano
that I absolutely love at a local dealer. It is a 6'1" Kawai KG-3D
from 1985. It was originally sold in Japan and shipped over here
about a year ago, which qualifies it as a used "grey market" piano.
I'm not overly worried about this since I live on the west coast which
has a similar climate to Japan.
The only thing I'm worried about with this piano is some tiny hairline
cracks in the bridges, surrounding most of the bridge pins. The
cracks are worst in the bass and high treble. In the bass, some of
the pin holes appear to be slightly elongated. I can't tell if
they're loose without removing the strings.
In Larry Fine's book, he says that tiny cracks like this are quite
common and not a cause for alarm. The only problem is if the cracks
are so big that the pins actually get pushed aside by the force of the
strings.
The tone of the piano is just fine, so my only concern is whether this
problem might get worse and lead to major problems down the road.
Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated. I'm going to
have a tech check it out before I buy, but I'd like to know if I
should even bother with this piano at all first.
Thanks,
Jeremy
pianoguy
> The only thing I'm worried about with this piano is some tiny
> hairline cracks in the bridges, surrounding most of the bridge
> pins. The cracks are worst in the bass and high treble. In the
> bass, some of the pin holes appear to be slightly elongated.
> I can't tell if they're loose without removing the strings.
All you can do in a situation like this is speculate. The hairline cracks
may never open up but there's no way to be certain and bridge work is
expensive. The elongated pinholes in the bass bridge is another story, if
you remove a string I'm betting the bridge pin will be loose. Loose pins in
the bass bridge could cause distortion in the tone and the tuning may not be
stable. The loose pins could be temporarily repaired/patched with Epoxy but
the best thing would be a new bridge at a cost of several hundred
dollars...and that's assuming you can find a tech who knows how to properly
do a job like that.
I'm thinking your tech will suggest that you continue your search...I know I
would.
--
pianoguy
return email disabled
Rick Clark
isn't neccessarily going to cause problems if they're minor, 1985
isn't that old. I would really be wondering why one so young has
cracks with open gaps already. I think the two best possible
explanations are 1. Inferior bridge cap wood 2. Nasty climatic
extremes (wet/dry cycles).
Still, I wouldn't neccessarily reject it unless I could find other
signs of Stress Related Deformation (SRD) in other parts of the piano-
but it takes a fairly skilled inspection by a knowledgable tech to
reveal such.
However, as a minimum, you could hire an indie tuner to tune it before
you buy it, and get a report from him on how the pin block felt to
him. That would be a good indicator, and if the tuning pins are not
tight all around, I would want to stay away from it, and assume the
previous climate has really taken a toll.
If it's otherwise OK, I would just plan on dealing with the bridge
repair or replacement when the piano needs restringing.
Regards,
Rick Clark
Jeremy Walker
on the matter.
Update: The dealer of this piano has offered to repair the bridge
cracks pre-sale by using epoxy to fill the cracks and set the pins in
place. This is at no extra charge to me.
After explaining the situation to my own technician, he said that
using epoxy on the bridge cracks can significantly affect the tone of
the piano, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. He said
if the cracks aren't very large, it's better to just leave them alone.
Fixing the bridge properly can be done in 10 or 15 years when the
piano is likely to need restringing anyways.
I'm thinking it might be smartest to use this as a bargaining point to
get the dealer to lower the price on the piano. If I can get the
dealer to lower the price from $12000 CDN down to $10000 CDN, that
just about covers the cost of restringing in the future.
Any thoughts?
pianoguy
> Any thoughts?
===============
Continue your search for a piano.
Rich Pierro
Epoxy? If anything your tech should use CA glue. Plus a 1985 piano
that's already showing pin movement? Elongated holes? Sometimes I get 100
year old pianos in my shop with minimal splitting in the bridges. Plus, the
act of gluing the bridge pins means that to do it properly, the strings
would have to be loosened and lifted off the bridge. When you loosen the
strings, the tuning pins have to be turned probably better than a half of a
turn and back when finished. Also, the excess glue (which is by my estimate
unavoidable) will have to be removed, exposing the surface of the bridge to
a likely beating from a chisel or something. The wear and tear the repair
will cause could be worse than the current damage! Keep looking, for real.
--
Rich Pierro
A-Sharp Piano Rebuilding
http://www.pianorebuilder.com