[CAUT] pin block strangeness

[Mitch Staples]

Chris,

Sorry to be of no help.  But perhaps you can get back into the good graces
of the dealer by offering this advertising slogan "Dong Bei - You'll never
know better"

Mitch

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces@ptg.org]On Behalf Of
Christopher Purdy
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 10:01 AM
To: College and University Technicians
Subject: [CAUT] pin block strangeness


I ran into a new one the other day.  A local dealer has pianos made for
them by Dong Bei in China.  I was asked to make a service call on a
small grand that was sold to a church.  This was my first encounter
with one of these pianos.  The local tuner was having trouble with
tuning stability and they asked me to have a go at it.

Overall, it looked fairly well built and pin torque was very
consistent.  String rendering had a mushy feel to it but I was able to
set pins.  It seemed stable while I tuned and sounded like a million
bucks when I was finished.  The other tuner had told the dealer that
the piano was going out of tune even while he was working on it so I
was very meticulous with my tuning and was looking everywhere for an
answer.

Then I found something that blew me away.  I checked the pin block fit
and found that the block does not even touch the flange, at any point.
Not only could I put a business card in the gap, bass to treble, but
there was a huge gap.  I could have put the thickness of three or four
cards in it with no problem.

The previous tuner had just tuned the piano eight days before and when
I got there the treble was a good 25 cents sharp.  I do not know this
tuner so I can't speculate about his experience. I asked a ton of
questions about humidity and temperature fluctuations and I gather that
it has been pretty stable.  They do not turn off the heat during the
week, etc.   I am going back this week to check my tuning.  I can't
imagine it's going to be stable with no attempt whatsoever at pin block
fitting.

Have any of you seen anything like this?  I know there is a lot of
griping about the pianos coming out of China but the rest of the piano
really looked fairly well made.  The piano is named Steinhauer and is
made exclusively for this dealer.  I would be very interested in
hearing any experiences you may have had like this.  If I go back there
and my tuning is FUBAR I am going to have to condemn this bird.  I have
a good relationship with this dealer but I smell trouble.

Mitch, have you dealt with any of these yet?

Chris
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