A friend of mine owns an old german piano made in the 1850s. It is absolutely beautiful wood. Something was wrong with the damper peddle and he found a tuner that would work on it but the tuner said he needed a metal worker to repair the damaged part. That is where I come into the picture.
The piano tuner pulled out a long metal rod (almost 4 feet long) and about 1/2 inch diameter. Three small rods about 0.2 inchs in diameter are attached to the long rod, but one is broken off. This rod apparently holds the dampers off the strings when the peddle is pushed.
It was very interesting to study the German construction used in the 1850s.
The metal looks (and machines) exactly like a piece of CRS rod. I don't know a much about history but was this kind of metal common back then?
The long rod was cross drilled and counter sunk on each side for the small rods. The small rods are reduced in size and pressed into the long rod and peened over to rivit them in. The mushroomed top was filed off even with the rod and it was not obvious how they were attached. It was done so well that I could not determine how they were attached until I tried to drill out the small rod.
The end of each small rod was flattend and drilled to make a small hinge. The other part of the hinge was a piece of flat stock with a slot (probably sawed) and pinned to the small round bar.
My point is that the workman ship was excellent and probably completely done with hand tools. I am impressed and I bow down to the OLD craftsmans.
I repaired the broken rod by making an extension that went over the small rod and reduced in diameter to go through the existing hole in the big rod. I peened it over and filed it off just like the original. I used loctite and a small pin to secure the small rod to the extension.
chuck