While I was visiting the factory in the mid-1970s-nothing official, just a week to wander around, looking and listening, taking pictures and generally getting in the way-I noticed that one of the leveling sticks were warped. These were the spruce sticks used as straight-edges by the key levelers. It did not look like they had been cut that way; but how could one really tell for sure. (I didn't see them all so I have no way of knowing if there were any others sharing this warp.) I mentioned this to someone-Joe Bisceglie, if memory serves-who, at first, hadn't seemed to have noticed and wasn't sure just why this should be. Later I was told that someone in the action department had explained the leveling stick was "crowned" because the keys would settle during the first few months and they wanted to be sure they ended up flat, not concave. Nothing was said at the time about there being a matching crown in the keybed. And in those days I worked on a lot of Steinways of all ilks and can assure you that their keybeds were all over the place; some flat, some concave and, indeed, others with a slight crown. I was never quite sure if what they had told him was the truth-that is, actual design and policy-or if it was something someone made up to cover for the fact that the sticks were warped. It always seemed to me more likely it was one of those little mistake things that just happens in production and that, after it's happened enough times and over a long enough period of time, turns into department folklore gradually becoming one of those little production secrets every company has and eventually becoming a locked-in-stone company policy requiring its own CNC machining center. Still, my own leveling stick is "warped" pretty much the same way. ddf Delwin D Fandrich Piano Design & Fabrication 620 South Tower Avenue Centralia, Washington 98531 USA del at fandrichpiano.com ddfandrich at gmail.com Phone 360.736.7563 From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Horace Greeley Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 6:08 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] key leveling with a curve .FWIW, in all the years I've been picking brains, books, archives, patents, you-name-its, about "things piano", this is one of the ones for which I've _never_ found an answer that really makes sense or holds up under serious scrutiny...much less practical application. Best. Horace P.S. - But seriously, folks, if anyone out there _does_ have some _substantive_ documentation, I really would love to see it...at this stage, one less mystery in life would be most welcome...hg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20101014/12d6b2aa/attachment.htm>
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