Sealed pianos

[Les Smith]

Hi, Horace.

The piano was a late 1950's vintage with a natural wood case. Actaully
quite a nice instrrument. By using a long, flexible-blade scraper, and
a lot of patience, I was eventually able to separate the key frame from
the bed. I then scraped and sanded off the glue residue, adjusted the
glides, took care of the action problems and reassembled evrything. The
key frame exibited no warping or knock and the una corda, sostenuto and
damper pedals worked just fine. To this day I have no idea what possess-
ed that earlier tech to glue the keyframe to the keybed. Fortunately,
when I explained the problem to the piano's owner, and she saw the steam
begin to come out of my ears, she left me alone to work in peace. I think
I may have expressed a couple of uncomplimentary opinions about the pre-
vious technician, which she was better off not hearing! :-)

Les Smith
lessmith@buffnet.net

On Fri, 7 Mar 1997, Horace Greeley wrote:

>
> Les,
>
> Inquiring minds want to know - just how old was this L?
>
> Horace
>
> At 07:32 PM 3/7/97 -0500, you wrote:
> >Hi, Avery.
> >
> >I guess this one fits in under the "sealed piano" thread. A couple of
> >years ago I was called in to service an S&S "L" that was exhibiting
> >some action problems. I removed the check block screws easily,  and
> >then the key-slip, check blocks and fall board. No problem. Until I
> >tried to remove the action. It simply wouldn't budge. Further inves-
> >tigation revealed that a charter member of the BPTA ( Bozo Piano
> >Technicians of America) had turned the glides up all the way and then-
> >now get this--glued the keyframe to the keybed! Talk about frustration!
> >It turned some relatively routine action-work into a major PITA. And,
> >yes, my sense of frustration was clearly reflected in my bill! :-)
> >
> >Les Smith
> >lessmith@buffnet.net
> >
> >On Fri, 7 Mar 1997, Avery Todd wrote:
> >
> >> Ted,
> >>
> >>    I have that problem with the techs at the local S & S dealer. Every
> >> time I need to get into one of his C & A pianos, because of the "Gorilla"
> >> who tightened down the cheek block screws I have to have a "Godzilla"
> >> screwdriver to get the screws out. Can be embarrassing sometimes. I went
> >> through 3 screwdrivers once in a competition situation (each one bigger
> >> & longer) before I finally got the screws out to fix a note that wasn't
> >> working correctly. Frustrating.
> >>    I told him once I was going to start charging extra any time that
> >> happened. :-)
> >>
> >> Avery
> >>
> >> > Fortunately the screws came out easily, but, you're right,
> >> >sometimes they are screwed in by a gorilla.
> >> >
> >> >Ted Simmons
> >>
> >> _____________________________________
> >> Avery Todd, RPT
> >> Moores School of Music
> >> University of Houston
> >> 713-743-3226
> >> atodd@uh.edu
> >> http://www.uh.edu/music/
> >> _____________________________________
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> Horace Greeley
>
> Stanford University
> email: hgreeley@leland.stanford.edu
> voice mail: 415.725.9062
> LiNCS help line: 415.725.4627
>
>
>