>From my experience as a Colson owner and player, The loose key shafts are almost certainly due to wear My Colson has had its key shaft slots shimmed at least once in the distant past More recently it had a complete set of new ebony keys by Chris Allen My other baroque HG has VERY worn keys and will also be getting a new set soon
After nearly 200 years of playing, HG keys get very worn Only shimming the slots is a common but not entirely satifactory fix The problem is that both the slots and the key shafts wear The keys shafts seem to wear the most The wear is only at the ends where they slide through the slots They will be the original size in the middle and can jam is pressed hard Shimming only works well if the shafts are thinned down and squared up first The shafts on my Colson had been thinned a lot and some broke across the tangent holes Graham -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Colin Sent: 04 June 2008 12:26 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [HG] Hurdy Gurdies in museums information I understand. What we have to decide is the direction we are looking from. A musical instrument or a blueprint. For historical reference it needs to be as near to how it was originally. As a musical instrument, it needs to have been maintained, with parts replaced as they wear out or better practices evolve. Teflon spray wasn't around when a Colson was being built so, I presume, the key slots needed to be loose to allow for changes in humidity perhaps. Good points. It IS important to have something to compare with. Still feels sad though................ Colin Hill ----- Original Message ----- From: "Simon Wascher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 10:15 AM Subject: Re: [HG] Hurdy Gurdies in museums information > > 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 > > > >
