You are right, stories behind certain procedures surely do change. Were you able to look back through the Steinway manufacturing history you would probably find that certain procedures came about by accident. That might even go for compression crowing. Explanations came later and so are subject to modification. Steinway generally is not very forthcoming about manufacturing and design specifics but then most manufacturers aren't. I recall asking them what their design speaking lengths were for a certain model once, even though I could certainly go to a piano and measure, they wouldn't tell me. Since there is a somewhat random element in the manufacturing that might cause deviations from the design target perhaps they didn't want it out there that this particular piano was done wrong. I don't really blame them for that. I don't tell anyone all my design protocols either. David Love www.davidlovepianos.com -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Ron Nossaman Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2012 11:08 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] making the Gen-u-whine Steinway On 5/3/2012 12:07 PM, David Love wrote: > The employees may not know but that doesn't mean that there isn't > some design intent. They likely just do what they are told. I don't > imagine anyone is going rogue there. Rogue wasn't the implication, but the story (reason) behind any given procedure ought to be fairly consistent within the company instead of leaving it up to the individual employees to make up as they go along. It just needs to be established once for any given process, and stuck to, but in the years I've been in the business, it hasn't. This seems strange to me. No, I don't have documentation or sworn witnesses, but something as commonly questioned as verdigris and what the waxy gunk is has produced all sorts of answers, non answers, and contradictory stories from Steinway representatives through the years. One of many which hasn't produced a stable answer through the years. I'm not trying to start a fight or debate, but I do wonder why it's so difficult to get something you can actually focus on and discern the shape of from Steinway. Ron N
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