Warranty dilemma

[Ron Nossaman]

>Hey Ron. I agree with you that the owner has a climate control problem.  But
>regardless - 0 in.-lb. torque? This sounds like a material and/or
>manufacturing defect to me. IMHO, I don't think any piano SHOULD be
>untunable in seven years in a residential environment - even without
>air-conditioning.
>
>Terry Farrell

Hi Terry,
That was one pin - E<middle C. The rest, he said, were too loose to tune. I
certainly agree that a piano shouldn't be untunable after seven years in a
residential environment, but no manufacturer can make something impervious
to cumulative abuse. While I don't know exactly how things were/are done at
Baldwin, It seems unlikely to me that it's a manufacturing defect unless
there is absolutely no quality control during manufacturing. That's not
impossible, obviously, but how would oversized drill bits or undersized
pins get into the line? This happened at Samick a few years back, but I
understood they had changed pinblock types and just didn't adjust drilling
size to accommodate. If these pianos were originally intended to have the
high density blocks, that could be what happened here too but it seems
unlikely to me that they originally spec'd the expensive block in a small
cheap piano and switched during production. That's why we file warranty
claims and wait to see what comes back. The blocks are statistically going
to be fairly uniform in density from block to block, and a bad block
wouldn't be bad all over unless it was delaminating - just in spots (if
you'd notice bad spots in individual laminations at all), so I don't
believe the bad block scenario. That leaves the climate control. It was
reported that the dealer threw in extra tunings because the piano"wouldn't
stay in tune". What the heck does that mean? We've all dealt with this sort
of thing from customers enough to know that it means nothing at all by
itself. Unless the dealer's tuner was working so far past his capabilities
that he couldn't detect and report loose pins that were there from day one,
that probably wasn't the problem. If this tech had kept temperature and
humidity logs with each tuning, and this information had been reported in
the post, we would have at least some information against which to bounce
our random guesses. As it is, we know the house has radiators and the piano
has loose pins. Lacking more detailed information, I consider that to be a
pretty good clue. Being dry all the time doesn't mean much of anything
either. It's the amplitude and frequency of humidity swings that does
damage. The width of the cycle swings is important. I have seen one of
those 11 ply Schaff blocks go from almost "break the pin" tight, to not
holding string tension in a little over three years in a high school vocal
music room with radiator heat and uncontrolled summer humidity, and they're
better blocks than that. This one just went from the low 20% range to over
80% - from under 5%MC, to over 14% - too many times. It's hard to imagine
anything made of wood suffering that for long and still functioning. I have
also seen these same blocks hold up for many years in less extreme humidity
swings. Without any better information, I'd still conclude that it's a
climate control problem. I'd also be surprised if Baldwin were merciful and
magnanimous enough to pick it up as a warranty claim. They have surprised
me before though, and it's always worth a try. If they do cover it, I'd
expect the same thing to happen to the replacement unless the humidity
swings are brought under control, and I'd be looking out for it.

Again, without meaningful information, all I have to go on is experience
and deduction and I've never known that to be 100% accurate anywhere. I
have, however, found it to be statistically somewhat more dependable than
guessing. 


Ron N