Kelly is in Springfield, Ohio about an hour from here. Our chapter took a tour of the facilities an few years ago and observed the whole process. The plates are all drilled and the V-bars are ground with CNC machines which is why things have gotten more consistent. At the very end of the process we watched a worker attach some electrodes to the V-bars which is how they harden them I guess...they wouldn't (or couldn't) explain that too well. The NY plates are 100% finished and ready to bolt in when they leave the foundry but the Hamburg plates are raw metal, only very roughly ground when they leave. At the Hamburg factory I saw them drilling the raw plates with their own CNC machines and then they do their own finishing and painting. In Hamburg they take more care in this process and the plates look beautiful when finished. Eric Eric Wolfley, RPT Director of Piano Services College-Conservatory of Music University of Cincinnati -----Original Message----- From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Fred Sturm Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 6:26 PM To: College & University Technicians Subject: Re: [CAUT] Mythbusters On Mar 8, 2010, at 3:35 PM, David Ilvedson wrote: > Wait...Kelly producing all the plates is a plus? Isn't one of the > real problems with NY STeinways are the inconsistent plates...i.e. > string height problems? That isn't a good thing... Steinway now owns Kelly plates. Production values have gone up considerably. Agraffes are much more consistently spaced, for instance. Now they can actually control the process, rather than deal with a vendor. If I'm not mistaken, they ship plates to Hamburg now, as well as supplying NY - and others, like probably Walter and Mason (though I don't actually know that - those guys might purchase from Asia. But I think Kelly is the only plate manufacturer in North America now). Similarly with Kluge: they own it now. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu
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