In the series that I posted on Wurlitzer and Aeolian, I forgot to
mention much about the piano plates and where they got them.

In 1980, with the exception of Steinway, almost all of the piano
manufacturers in the United States had their piano plates cast by two
firms:  O. S. Kelly Co. and Wickham Piano Plate Co., both located in
Springfield, Ohio.

I called in Henry Wickham (third generation, running the firm) and
asked him if he was interested in casting the plates for my 44 note
piano.  He explained that they no longer used wooden patterns, that all
patterns were now themselves cast iron, because the process had been
automated.  He suggested that I call a pattern company in Dayton and
ask them to give me a quote on making the wooden pattern first, and
then his foundry would make the iron "match plate" to do the production
runs.

Iron foundries are a rather independent lot, at least in my experience.
They do not like to do "short" runs, and most of them will no longer do
"loose" patterns, i.e., those not mounted on a board.  They definitely
do not like "one off" items.

I called the pattern works in Dayton, and they wanted $6,500 to make
the pattern and Henry wanted I forget what, to make the match plate,
and that is when I decided that the men in the cabinet mill and I would
try to do it.

Henry Wickham invited me to come to Springfield and I went.  His
building is OLD -- the original building from when Wickham started
before the turn of the century.  When you walk in, however, everything
was "state of the art" as far as foundries were concerned in those
days.  Automation, as all of you know, saves on labor, and the cost of
labor is what really drives the prices up.

Both foundries were union shops, and as a result most of the piano
manufacturers that I talked to on that "Grand Tour" I wrote about,
bought plates from both the Springfield foundries, lest one of the
companies go on strike.  The old thing about "... all your eggs in one
basket".

Henry greeted me, gave me a hard hat, and we started out.  The pouring
room was first and all the molds were "rammed up" by machine, using
green sand -- special foundry sand that has to have almost an exact
moisture content.  The forms ("flasks", in foundry language) moved on a
conveyer in front of a giant electric furnace, which tipped and poured
the exact amount of molten iron.  The next was poured, and so on.

The flasks continued on that conveyer belt for a long distance -- 100
yards, maybe -- made two right turns, and started to come back to the
starting point, but on the other side of the building.  By the time
they got there, the metal had cooled sufficiently for the plates to be
un-molded.  Excess sand was cleaned from the plates and they passed to
the department that drilled all those holes for the tuning pins and
hitch pins.

The machinery for drilling was very unusual.  The plates were placed
on giant metal tables, and the men operating the drill presses, if you
could call them that, slid those plates around as they drilled.  Since
they needed both hands to move the plates, the drill press was con-
trolled by a long leather strap which came down and was attached to the
boot heel of the workman's right foot.  To lower the drill bit, all he
had to do was kick his right foot forward and the bit came down and did
its job.  There was a LOT of noise in this department, needless to say.

The drilled plates were hung on overhead conveyers for a trip through
the spray booth where they got a coat of CLEAR lacquer.  Well, it
looked like clear lacquer, but was a special product made by DuPont,
and according to my notes was their product number 2286S.  After that
the hitch pins were installed, by hand, using air-operated machinery to
assist in driving them home.

Then there was another trip through the spray booths for the gilding,
as I call it.  The plates were stacked on pallets and moved to the
shipping docks.  The day I was there I saw trucks for Baldwin and
Aeolian backed up to the dock waiting to be loaded.

Wickham made so many plates for Baldwin in those days that the Baldwin
plates were drilled in a special machine that Henry had had made.  They
were unbelievable, and all I can tell you is that the machine had a
separate drill for every hole in the plate mounted on it.  All the
drills rotated at the same time, and an entire plate could be drilled
in less that 5 minutes.  Not all Baldwin plates got this treatment,
just the ones used in the most popular numbers in the Baldwin line.

Henry had told me that SOMEWHERE in the pattern storage area he was
sure that they still had the patterns for the small keyboardless
pianos from the "old days".  When we got to the pattern room, I was
once again dumbfounded.  As far as the eye could see were patterns
stacked vertically.  What was most evident were the patterns for
concert grands, jutting up into the air above all the others.

As I wandered around, I looked at the names on the patterns and came to
the conclusion that, at some time or other, almost every piano company
had tried to make a nine-foot concert grand.  When I was there I saw a
prototype plate for Kimball; I do not know whether they ever put that
nine foot piano into production, but the prototype plate was there.

We never found the patterns we were looking for, and believe me, we
looked.  I was expecting any minute the name Seeburg or Wurlitzer on a
plate for an "L", or a Pianino.  In the end, Henry said, "Well, a few
years back, we did run out of space and cleaned up." If they had
cleaned up, it was not evident from what I was seeing.

Grand piano plates were coated with a special filler, again made by
DuPont, before they were sprayed gold.  It was DuPont product 351-100.
Now if someone out there finds out that these numbers are not correct
... well, that was 18 years ago.

The O. S. Kelly plant was not as friendly, not as automated, and
announced that they would charge me $500.00 per plate and they had not
even seen the pattern yet.  They (reluctantly) let me tour the plant,
and I saw one of the plates that would eventually be used in the
reproduction KT Specials, which were being made at that time.

Soundboard material for most plants came from Posey Manufacturing
Company in Hoquiam, Washington.  C. L. Brandenburg was the man in
charge, and he told me how to "cure" soundboards before using them in
pianos.  In the end, I used 3/8" Baltic Birch for our soundboards and
poplar for the ribs.

I found the documentation for the orders for the Seeburg Valve Seats.
The tooling charge was $130.00 and they cost me 16.7 cents a piece in
lots of 10,000.  I am selling them now for eighteen cents; not a
tremendous profit there!

By the way, there were never any blueprints for the 44 note pianos,
just our shop notes written down in a bound ledger book.  Needless to
say, the "failures" far exceed the "successes".  Steinway still makes
their pianos using a series of "shop notes", and I figured if those
folks in Astoria could do it we could also, and we did!

Ed Gaida