Current research suggests that the tensile strength of pre-modern piano wire differed from that of modern piano wire. There is some evidence that suggests the Chickering Piano Company either had wire drawn to their own specifications or, at some points drew the wire themselves. For this reason, we use Paulello nickel plated plain wire in varying…
Chickering pianos had excellently designed Erard and Brown style actions. Pianists often comment on how “they play themselves”, or “ played on this piano, these passages finally make sense”. We retain and restore the original actions and their geometries. These actions have a higher leverage, and thus a slightly reduced key dip relative to modern actions….
Heavy and /or hard felt modern hammers cannot produce the Chickering piano sound we are looking for…period…it doesn’t work. We use a very soft, low density version of Weikert Special felt which is only produced in custom runs. It is not usually available from supply houses. Hammer weight is controlled and minimized as required by high leverage…
Chickering pianos pre-1900, were famous for textural clarity and differentiation of 4 distinct registers. These tonal attributes can only be produced by low compression, low stress soundboards. The boards will have minimal crown and minimal board loading. All our Chickering piano soundboards have this low compression type of soundboard. Unfortunately, almost all current rebuilding shops…
Action parts for Chickering pianos are not in current production, and thus mostly not available from supply houses. This means we replicate original parts as necessary. We have the machinery, appropriate stock of woods, and knowledge of the materials to reproduce parts of an action or indeed whole actions. It is common for us to reproduce…
