This ca. 1848 Pleyel needed some serious rescuing of its tuning pins. Once we were sure it could hold pitch at 430 Hertz (common for this period), I could get on with putting it back together – rubbing down the iron strings, regulating the hammer spacing, re-building the dampers in a way that, as far as possible, kept the originals. (Note the folded felt – much stronger and more efficient than our modern wedge felts.)

It’s now a stable and expressive instrument.