[pianotech] Steinway M ballpark value

[reggaepass at aol.com]

Well, the pins were originally very crudely made, and I'm not so sure 
they (when the procedure was established) had rounded tops.

Some time ago I restrung a European "Boutique Piano" (to borrow a term I heard used by Horace Greely years ago).  The client opted for all OEM materials, so we ordered bass strings and bridge pins from the manufacturer.  They invoiced me for bass strings and "bridge nails" (!!!), which turned out to be an accurate description (less the head of the nail, which had already been removed by some distinguished "guest worker," no doubt, thus elevating it from an ordinary nail to a pricey GERMAN nail!).  Needed filing--or I guess I could have used little plastic caps :-)--to make the end result look anything other than downright funky.


Alan Eder





-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net>
To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Fri, Oct 29, 2010 6:10 am
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Steinway M ballpark value


On 10/29/2010 8:40 AM, Porritt, David wrote:
> Alan:
>
> I’ve always attributed this to the heat and the side to side stress of
> the filing. I have no scientific proof but I always questioned the idea
> of stressing the new pins when it’s just not necessary.
>
> If you have noticed as you remove old pins from a famous piano factory,
> many were installed point side down, and others round side down. That’s
> why they had to file the tops to hide the irregular installation.

Well, the pins were originally very crudely made, and I'm not so sure 
they (when the procedure was established) had rounded tops. The bridges 
were, and still are as far as I know, hand drilled. So, given nasty 
looking pins and holes of random depth, the obvious way to make them 
look neat is to drive the pins to the bottom of the hole and even them 
up with a file on top. I think it's a manufacturing expedient, lowering 
the skill level and time needed for installation.

Ron N


 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20101029/7843fc29/attachment.htm>