replace/rebuild

[Brent.Fischer@ASU.Edu]

Wim,

  I would rebuild the D with the best draft angles on the plate from the
V-bar to front duplex bars, either the 40 or 30 year old should be okay
but also look at the shelf angle in the middle area from agraffes to
tuning pins. Pick the piano with the best overall angles and front duplex
bar shape. Steinway still has serious problems in getting the front bars
shaped correctly. Sometimes they fall away quickly and have obvious height
problems. They just don't get it in New York for whatever reason, all they
have to do is look at a Hamburg plate to see how it's done and they choose
to continue to screw this important area up. While being in charge of the
Steinway concert piano maintenance at the dealership I am confronted with
these problems time and time again. Tuning clean unisons and hunting down
buzzing and zinging problems in the V-bar areas in their pianos is a career
all into itself.  The irony of this is that Steinway still builds the
most powerful piano in the industry, you just have to be in a 2000 seat
hall so one doesn't have to listen to all the garbage.

  So what I am chosing to do for the school is doing a plate swap. A fourty
year old plate will go in a 1988 D and it will get a new board, block, etc.
If I were in your position I would rebuild the D, send it out for a
high gloss poly finish, have it rebuilt by someone who follows Steinway
board procedures, force-crowned to be specific, also make sure a Steinway
block is used, Steinway action parts and especially New York hammers, also
include a geometrically correct keyboard built by Roseland Piano Company
with ivory, and then just be assertive about expecting fine detail in the
craftsmanship and you will end up with a real "Crown Jewel."





-------------------
Brent Fischer
Senior Piano Technician
Arizona State University