THE piano that has caused me the most grief in my 23 years as a piano technician is a Knabe built about 1975. At every tuning there are hammers out of alignment rubbing on each other, among other maladies. Often extra calls were made in between tunings, too. I think the hammer shanks were installed randomly with no attention paid to the direction of the grain! Almost anything you can think of has been wrong with this piano from the beginning. Poor workmanship throughout! To make it worse, it is owned by an elderly lady who bought it as her "dream" piano as she neared retirement! She finally gave it to her daughter after her sister died and left her a Steinway "O" built about 1914! At last she has a fine instrument. Ray T. Bentley, RPT Alton, IL ----- Original Message ----- From: Ron Nossaman <RNossaman@KSCABLE.com> To: <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Monday, June 26, 2000 9:09 PM Subject: Re: Knabe grand reputation > >I was not aware Knabe had such a good reputation. Every one I have ever seen > >from this era ends up to be a very average-sounding piano. All other > >features are also very average. I have never seen one that excited me beyond > >a ho-hum. > > > >Bob Bergantino, RPT > > > The wippens are pretty weird, and bridge cap grain direction is definitely > aberrant, but they're first rate foundations for rebuilding if you don't > try to reproduce what was there. > > Ron N
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