An Improvement in Cast Iron Piano Frames
Year: 1897

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
An Improvement in Cast Iron Piano Frames."
CLIFFORD ROBERT STEPHEN JOHN HALLÉ, Lecturer and Musician, of 8, Abing-
don Villas, Kensington, and JAMES RUSSELL, Cabinet Maker and Piano Builder, of
50, Pembroke Road, Kensington, do hereby declare the nature of this invention
to be as follows:-
The frame consists of several upright bars or bracings joined together at the
top & bottom by cross bars. The top cross bar is resting on abutments & is
sufficiently wide to take the under part of the wrest plank, & may have a plate
of metal cast on to it to follow out the line of the top bridge in front of the
wrest plank & the bridge itself, if considered desirable, may be cast with this
plate out of metal.
On each upright bracing there are one or more strong abutments in front at
the requisite distances from the wrest plank to take the hitch-pin plates, which
plates are perforated so as to fit on to these abutments on the front side of the
sound board & are strongly bolted to them. The sound board is perforated so as
to pass freely over these abutments without touching in any part, & may thus
be an over-all soundboard. The upright bracings are continued above the
cross-bar which supports the wrest plank, to the height of the wrest-plank, the
continuations being thinner by the requisite amount to take the thickness of
the wrest plank, which is bolted strongly to the bracings thus throwing the
strain of the forward pull on to them.
The principal of this improvement is that the iron uprights being placed
entirely behind the sound board, the metallic ring which cannot be avoided. when
the metal uprights are in front is entirely done away with as is also the necessity
of an unequal scale.
The whole of the frame is cast in one piece & the fact of the abutments being
cast on the uprights throws the whole of the pull of the strings directly onto the
uprights.
CLIFFORD HALLÉ.
JAMES RUSSELL.

page_text: and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described
and ascertained in and by the following statement:-
The object of this invention is to enable the metal bars necessary for the
strength of a piano frame to be placed behind the sound-board, not as is usually
done between the sound board and the strings.
The construction of the frame is very simple and can be easily understood
from the accompanying drawings.
The frame is cast all in one piece and consists of two or more upright, oblique
or horizontal shaped bars (according as the piano is upright, oblique, or grand)
A, A, in drawings represent these bars. At some distance from the top of the
bars a cross bar B B is cast on to the upright bars and supported by abutments
as shown in Fig. 2 (side view of one of the upright bars A). Above this cross
bar B the upright bars are cut away back and front so as to make room for the
wrest plank in front & to save weight behind. The T cross piece is still retained
on this upper smaller portion of the upright bars. The wrest plank is so cut
as to pass behind the bar B & thus be held firmly at the lower part, while the
upper part is screwed firmly on to the upper parts of the upright bars A. The
face of the wrest plank is flush with the bar B. Part of the bridge may be cast
on the bar B or the bar B may be continued up in the shape of the bridge so as
to take the whole bridge. On the first two or three bars A at sufficient distance
from the bar B one or more strong abutments are cast C C in drawings. These
abutments are cast with shoulders & the round portion D may be tapped for
strong nuts. The treble hitch pin plate is perforated so as to slip on to these
rounded parts of the abutments DD, & to rest on the shoulders CC. The nuts
are then screwed on & the hitch pin plate thus securely fixed. The ends of the
hitch pin plates are bent under the bottom of the frame, & screwed from below
on to the cross bar E E at the bottom of the frame.
Before fixing the hitch pin plates on, the sound board (which may be an over
all sound board) & which is perforated with square holes large enough to pass
freely over the square parts of the abutments C C, is put on & the upper part
fixed to the lower portion of the wrest plank, which, as said above, has been
cut so as to pass behind the bar B. The rest of the sound board is fixed in the
ordinary manner. When the sound-board is fixed the hitch pin plates are
screwed on.
Fig. 3 is a section of one of the upright bars at a point where an abutment
is fixed.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of our said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, we declare that what
we claim is:
The herein described frame with abutments on which the hitch pin plates are
screwed & over which the sound board passes as described.
September 1st 1898.
CLIFFORD HALLE.
JAMES RUSSELL.