Rippen stability

[Delwin D Fandrich]

I have also found the Rippen piano to be remarkably stable.

We had one for several years as our personal piano.  It was in our house
when it burned.  The piano was relatively undamaged except for the steam
from the water used to put out the fire and its exposure to the elements.
The firemen chose a spot just beside the piano to break a hole through the
wall to gain access to the house.  This was in January (the night before my
birthday!) in Portland, Oregon in the middle of one of Portland's infamous
ice storms.  It was about a week before we could get the piano moved out of
the totaled house.  Once it warmed up, the piano was back very close to
pitch and amazingly close to being in tune with itself.

To really appreciate this, you should know that this was a piano I had
restrung a couple of years earlier.  I had intended only to put on a set of
rescaled bass strings but when about half way through the process of
dropping tension on the bass strings in preparation to removing them, the
lower tenor strings -- which were bi-chord wrapped unisons -- started to
break.  The plate had warped that much!  I ended up dropping tension
throughout the piano at lightning speed and then went ahead and rescaled the
entire piano.  The results were quite satisfactory to me at the time
although I don't know what I would think about the overall sound now.  This
was in the mid 1970s and my tastes in piano tone have changed some since
then.

Del


----- Original Message -----
From: Kristinn Leifsson <istuner@islandia.is>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: May 21, 2000 5:02 PM
Subject: Rippen stability


> Dear list,
>
> Rippen made a three part laminated soundboard.
>
> What´s the story on that, and what variations do companies have in that
> regard, and through history?
> Does it matter much?
>
> The Rippens I´ve seen have been tremendously stable in the long term.
Many
> of them eerily close to pitch after 10-15 years.  I don´t think that was
> because of humidity since other pianos have not been this stable here.
> They had some 24 laminations in the pin block.
> Might that contribute a lot compared to the soundboard?
>
> Regards,
>
> Kristinn Leifsson,
> Reykjavík, Iceland
>