On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 5:03 PM, John Delacour <JD at pianomaker.co.uk> wrote: > At 16:43 -0600 12/2/09, Michael Magness wrote: > > On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 3:23 PM, Ron Nossaman wrote: >> >>> I used yellow poplar in this one. The original had both top plates and >>> buttons, and needed new buttons. To stiffen the keys... >>> >> >> I know my pics were lousy but I'm certain you can see the difference >> between the clean neat not over the top job you did and the less than >> stellar job performed on the piano in question. >> > > What puzzles me is that you are able to tell the difference in this case > between a proper job and a botch, and yet, in the case of the totally > non-stellar eyes on the bass strings you brought up in the last thread, > after 40 years of experience with properly made eyes you were unable to see > that these were quite unacceptable in every possible way. > > JD > > > > Hi John, First of all, in the case of the keys, it was not as much what was done as how it was done as a symptom of a rebuilder who has no feedback other than from his "adoring" customers who wouldn't know a proper job from a botch as long as it looks pretty and makes something akin to a piano sound. He has no idea of how to do anything approaching what Ron did or that Mike Morvan and Blackstone Valley Piano exist and could have made him a new set of keys or advised him of alternatives to the slapdash job he did. He is not only not a PTG member but eschews contact with other techs, I wonder why? In regard to the wound strings, I will agree they weren't the prettiest set of loops I've ever seen however in the area of wound strings I'm more concerned with function than beauty. They sounded great, the unisons matched, I didn't have to de-tune one or the other of any of the unisons in order to get the beat rate to match up as I do so often on many production pianos. This was a little 5' grand that was 100 years old as I was rebuilding it, rescaling it, etc. So if the loops, which no one will ever see but me and whoever takes over from me, aren't pretty, I don't really care, as long as they don't break anymore and sound great, I'll be happy! So we don't really disagree John, I've just learned to concern myself with what I can control and let the rest go. In other words I don't sweat the petty things nor do I pet the sweaty things! (grin) Mike -- I intend to live forever. So far, so good. Steven Wright Michael Magness Magness Piano Service 608-786-4404 www.IFixPianos.com <http://www.ifixpianos.com/> email mike at ifixpianos.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090212/e5e6dab9/attachment-0001.html>
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