wrote:
Hmmm, a badly structured question. Hopefully it makes more sense now.

On 28/01/2021 12:12, wrote:
A bit of a long-shot but ... is there anyone out there who has
restored, is restoring, or has worked on a 19th century square piano?


It says here, it has to be restored, before it can be tuned.

https://antiquepianoshop.com/square-grand-pianos/

Makes for a cheap instrument :-) Replacing
all the strings, dampers, and degrade-able materials.
I guess you get to keep the original wood.

You could keep the strings and the "untuneable nature",
if you had one of these autotuners. Average operating
power = 800W to keep the piano in precise tune. The
800W represents the amount of heat needed to pull the
piano from initial tuning state, into tune.

https://newatlas.com/gilmore-self-tu...-system/21425/

So rather than rotate a peg to tune the string,
it uses electricity and heat in the string, to
set the frequency.

Paul