Lindner/Rippen pianos

[Ted Simmons]

Thanks for the history lesson on the Lindner pianos.  I've seen only  
2 of them in my career and walked away from both of them.
Once again, thanks.
Ted Simmons

On Mar 22, 2008, at 6:47 AM, justpianos at our.net.au wrote:

> Holly,
> Recently I was approached by a customer wanting a quote on repairing a
> Lindner piano. She told me that other tuners had refused to look at  
> the
> piano, so I made some investigations, to see what I could do.  
> Here’s what
> I found.
> The Lindner piano was a clever design that fell foul of poor  
> materials.
> The Rippen company originated in The Hague, west of Holland, where  
> they
> built pianos the classical way. After World War II the company  
> moved to
> Ede. They bought an old factory hall, extended it and started building
> pianos in a new way. In those post-war years there was a huge  
> demand for
> pianos, but most people did not have much to spend. Rippen decided to
> develop a "low cost" instrument, and they were successful. They  
> were also
> assembling and selling the Thomas organ, which originated in the USA.
> During the 1960s Ireland had lots of unemployed, and the Irish  
> government
> was looking for investments in order to create more jobs. They  
> published a
> bill in which they declared that in Shannon, near the local airport,
> foreign companies could achieve quite substantial tax reductions,  
> if only
> this would lead to a certain amount of local jobs.
> Rippen was already selling pianos in the USA, using the Thomas organ
> connection, but pianos being heavy, had to be shipped by boat,  
> which made
> it necessary to take care of sea-packaging, and so on.
> They had a brain-storm: if they could make a lightweight piano they  
> could
> ship it by air. And if they produced it at Shannon the investment  
> would be
> low, and for a nice number of years the tax reductions would be
> profitable. So they started the development of the "plastic piano".  
> They
> used a frame of aluminium tubes welded together, and they replaced  
> as much
> of the wooden parts as possible by plastic, ending up with an  
> instrument
> of only 75 kilos.  Since the keyboard could be turned downwards  
> inside the
> chest they were able to ship two pianos almost in the space  
> normally used
> by one. They could then send them everywhere, as long as an  
> airplane could
> land.
> Only the plastic parts were produced at Shannon, normal parts were
> purchased from external suppliers, and Renner even developed a special
> action mechanism. The main factory at Ede in the Netherlands  
> supplied some
> parts as well.
> You might be interested to know that Rippen, in their post-war models,
> never did use a "rast" (those posts of 4 x 4 inches). They glued and
> screwed the pinblock onto the plate, so all the strength had to  
> come from
> the cast iron frame.
> The sound boards of all Rippen/Lindner pianos were made out of three
> layers, cross-glued: a triplex. One true advantage: it could not  
> crack,
> although these Lindner models had quite limited tonal qualities.
> It is not know how many instruments were produced at Shannon. In  
> Ede the
> maximum output was 18 instruments per day, 5 days a week.
> Rippen went broke in the year 1987.
>
> Generally Lindner pianos are worthless now as most of the action is  
> made
> of plastic and practically impossible to repair when it goes wrong.  
> Most
> Lindners are at an age where they are rapidly disintegrating, hence
> utterly worthless as a piano, although when they are working they  
> have a
> reasonable touch. No replacement parts are available and most times  
> the
> piano is not worth the trouble to repair.
> Normally keyboard keys can be lifted out without any problem. The  
> plastic
> keys of the Lindner snap in, and thus the keys cannot be removed by
> pulling them away: they need to be unlocked. However, often these keys
> will come out just by pulling, but the clips will easily break.
> Provided the keys are still whole you've got a chance of repairs. But
> whatever you do, don't try to glue the plastic keys - it simply won't
> take. Super glue, epoxy, Airfix - none of it works. I'm sure there's a
> clever plastic welding glue or system that might work - but the first
> question would have to be WHY! You can actually borrow the parts  
> you need
> to get the middle going from the extreme ends. What's the old saying,
> "nobody plays these notes anyway"?
> You may need a mixture of hammer flanges (they are a modular snap  
> in job
> that often doesn't snap anymore) and the spring steel balance pin
> thingees. All of these bits are interchangeable (which is part of the
> basically clever idea behind the poor execution*).
> Do the repairs first – there is a chance that while you're tuning more
> bits will break - this is the only benefit of this whole thing -  
> you won't
> have nearly as much of the piano to tune once you're done. Or sell  
> it to
> another owner of one of these gems so that they have spares - it's  
> a bit
> like owning an old Citroen/Peugeot/Morris/Austin – you never own  
> one - you
> need at least three to keep one on the road! The broken key clips  
> seem a
> common problem.
> It is interesting that the front key dip is adjustable  
> individually, from
> under the key bed.
> Nobody seems to have invested in injection molding tools for
> re-manufacturing the clips, but an easy and reliable way to repair  
> these
> pianos is to weld the clips. The plastic of the clips seems to be  
> Nylon,
> which gets weakened in the heat. Welding the clips with hot air is
> feasible, but heating time, air flow profile and temperature  
> profile is
> quite critical. Ordinary hot air blowers will not do the job. Use a  
> repair
> station for soldering electronic surface mount devices, Weller (Model
> WQB2000 finepitch/BGA repair) with a nozzle for SOP8.  A simple  
> fixture
> makes sure that the clip has the correct size to fit into the aluminum
> rail.  Take a minimum of 3 minutes to heat up, then apply a heat  
> peak to
> both broken surfaces then press together -- done.
> Heating the complete clip to slightly below the melting point seems  
> also
> to change the Nylon molecular constitution, and the welded clip  
> appears
> flexible as new.
> 	Thanks to all who contributed, the WWWeb is a wonderful thing!
> 	Bruce Browning – The Piano Tuner
>
>