<<You would think someone would be checking this stuff all along the way>> I have always imagined that they missed it at the factory because it takes quite a bit of playing before the center pins seize. Back many years ago when I'd see a lot of seizing pins showing scoring where they touched the bushing cloth I'd even save them in a baggy and send them to the company's technical support. I figured that however distant the possibility, I ought at least to try to get the evidence back to the factory techs. No sign it ever got there, or did any good. Other problems which show up later, and not at the factory: goop used as lubricant on the keybed under grand action glides, turns to rubbery substance, with drag and noise. Rubber buttons -- fall out. Rubber lining grand pedal rod cups and upright pedal rod grommets ... noisy, wear through easily, turn to black goo if lubricated, can walk up the pin, causing dampers to stay off the strings. Teflon sprayed coating in place of spring punchings on upright actions -- this one really irritates me -- NOISY, and it wears through. The old cloth spring punchings worked perfectly for many years and absorbed sound. The teflon housing for upright pedal trapwork -- seems slippery, but can get a glaze and make an awful squeal. Luckily teflon tolerates lubricants like VJ lube or graphite, but you have to lever the housing open, since it snaps shut -- so far I haven't broken one. In general, I think that teflon is very over-rated for noise abatement. I wish Steinway would go back to the cloth-bushed center pin for the repetition spring post, even if one can tweak the rep spring at the teflon post to eliminate the click -- for awhile. Teflon has one fatal weakness for most of the jobs it is given to do in piano actions these days -- it can't absorb sound. Well, enough pet peeves for today -- anyway, all this stuff works perfectly in the factory, but in the field tends to fail or make a nuisance of itself within a couple of years. Susan Kline
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