My neighbor came over with a couple of pieces of her piano and asked me to see if I could repair it. The connection between the foot pedal box and the legs that attach to the underside of the piano broke. Seemed pretty straight forward: drill out the old 1" dowel and glue in the new. When I took it apart I noticed that the dowel that attaches the leg to the pedal box is tapered. It enters the box at 1" and is wedged on the inside at 3/4". So a tapered dowel. That seems weird to me, and it seems like it would be weaker that a full 1" dowel wedged. The dowel material left in the legs is very solid and as you can see in one of the pics I've made a guide block to drill them out. Now I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to clean off the top of the pedal box and attach it to the legs with bolts and fender washers and a skosh of epoxy. Of course being tone deaf I have no idea if any of this will affect the playing quality of the piano. I can't imagine it will - however I have often been wrong. (I have that on good authority from the lovely SWMBO).
Suggestions, comments, wild ideas and sarcastic remarks are all welcome.
20190120_154030.jpg20190120_154240.jpg20190120_154152.jpg20190120_153949.jpg20190120_154123.jpg