[CAUT] Teflon Bushings

[Horace Greeley]

Hi, Del,

At 08:54 PM 11/28/2010, you wrote:
>And those repair procedures were completely wrong for the material.

Yup...as was acknowledged at the time, by Freddie, and others.

>Yet this
>technique continued to be taught for several years after it was known and
>demonstrated to be inadequate.

This is correct, as far as it goes.

>Workable techniques did not come into being until they -- along with the
>appropriate tools -- were developed independently by piano technicians. Once
>we had the appropriate tools and had figured out how to service the things
>these actions became increasingly reliable and the benefits of synthetic
>bushings began to be realized. Of course, by then the damage was done and
>another fundamentally good idea had bitten the dust.

I respectfully disagree.

The correct tools were always available within the factory.  The 
problem, as with so many other things, is that getting both them and 
the proper techniques out to the field was the subject of a long and 
bitter internal fight.  On the one hand, there were people like 
Freddie who were trying to do _something_ (knowing that it was not 
the "right" thing).  On the other, were many in management who took 
the position that things were perfect, and that field technicians 
were the problem.

On my shop wall, I used to have a copy of a letter sent to a 
regionally well-known school from Vince Orlando, who was at the time 
a V.P. at Steinway.  The subject of the letter was the condition and 
servicing of a 1968 D.  The (paraphrased) content of the letter was 
to the effect that the piano had been perfect when it left the 
factory, and that, if there were any problems, they had obviously 
been caused by the incompetence of the local technician.  Although I 
was not the technician in question, I was familiar with both the 
instrument and the venue and can relate that the action had 
effectively locked up within weeks of delivery; and that nothing had 
been done to it.  Eventually, some degree of restorative warranty 
work was performed, but only after some very serious sabre-rattling 
on both sides.

It was not until a fair number of these situations arose that Freddie 
simply took it on himself to try to do something.  Sadly, many more 
such situations developed before the company realized that they had 
to make available the tools and instruction on how to use 
them.  While there undoubtedly were independent technicians who came 
up with this, too, I am not sure that it is possible to make a 
sustainable case that the solution was developed independently by 
them.  I still have, someplace, a factory kit that dates from 
sufficiently early in the timeline that it only has cut-outs for the 
smaller, non-ribbed bushings...which places it before 1965, by which 
time the larger bushings were starting to be seen in production.

All of this is, of course, less than the proverbial tempest in a 
teapot.  Between introducing a product/process that clearly was not 
ready for prime time, refusing to provide proper tools and parts, 
numerous "catastrophic" failures, and, I'm sorry to say, continuing 
unproductive commentary from sales personnel and technicians, what 
could have been a revolutionary improvement in piano actions has been 
swept into the dust-bin of piano history.  Hopefully, the advent of 
the reintroduction of this kind of engineering and thinking through 
the new action parts from W, N, & G has come at a time when people 
are more receptive to this kind of radical departure from tradition.

As always, best regards.

Horace



>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
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Horace
>Greeley
>Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2010 7:40 PM
>To: caut at ptg.org
>Subject: Re: [CAUT] Teflon Bushings
>
>... Perhaps more importantly, the solid-bushed Teflon action was a number of
>years into production before any procedures for servicing it was available,
>let alone tools with which to perform the service.  It wasn't until things
>were largely at crisis level that Freddie Drasche started teaching his
>home-grown technique of rolling brass center pins between two files....
>
>Too bad...still an excellent concept...once fully worked through, it's very
>stable and will last a long time.
>
>Best.
>
>Horace