Hello, Am 03.06.2008 um 00:10 schrieb Mike Gilpin:
Actually the Colson wasn't as bad as the others. From my notes I see that it needed a few tangents and touchpieces for the keys and the keys in the upper register were very floppy in the key slots. I was surprised to find the wheel only very, very slightly warped and ran true and the shaft had no discernible endfloat or lateral movement. To get this working again wouldn't mean losing any original features, just replacing the odd key touchpiece, tangent and the chien. I suppose a very small amount would be lost truing the wheel.......................... But then, as Graham said, they conserve not restore, which of course makes it much easier for people like me to come along and study an original unrestored item. This conservation / restoration dilemma is a difficult nut to crack!
having an untouched and unrestored instrument is a very rare and very important source of information: From the acctual Colson one can for example learn, that the maker had a way to create a very steady wheel and axle system, that "the keys in the upper register were very floppy in the key slots" - things you cannot learn from the restored instrument. Sometimens even the frets are untouched, giving an idea of the tuning system used 300 years ago - so even just making an instrument playable by tuning it to todays taste might destroy a very rare and important bit of information.
S. --- have a look at: http://hurdygurdywiki.wiki-site.com http://drehleierwiki.wiki-site.com --- my site: http://simonwascher.info
