European pianos mostly used nickle plated brass center pins. As did some domestic pianos. They came under criticism some years ago because the plating was flaking off. This was due to inferior plating, as good ones were very satisfactory. The socalled German silver is really a higher grade of brass, , light in color.and somewhat harder than brass. They were considered superior in quality. The pins I have acquired from Schaff fairly recently seem to be German silver, and I am reasonably satisfied with them except for the points, which are too short. If one is repinning a reversed center, where the bushing is in the birdseye, the points do not reach the hole to line up the parts, obliging one to first insert an undersized pin , then follow it through with the correct replacement. This is needless additional work. One time, when I worked in the Heintzman factory, an action arrived which was experimental. It had nylon flanges without bushings. We were told the steel centerpins had a nickle content sufficient to bring its wear properties into parity with that of the nylon, and thus they would never wear out. Somewhat like an irrisistable force against an immovable object. Or Ambrose Bierce's famous definition of an accident as 'an inevitable occurrence due the inexorable action of immutable natural laws' Anyway, most of the centers seized up when the screws were tightened. The discussion on verdigris has been very interesting; back in the 195'0s. I was friendly with Toronoto's most prominunt piano technician, Henri Kneifel. He was a superb crftsman, Swiss born and an apprentice of Bluthner . His employer, who was the Steinway dealer at the time sent him to New York for several months, which would have been in the late 1920's. Henri told me that the verdigris was caused by parrafin in the bushing cloth. I question whether the era that this covered was all that long. as even today one sees pre World War 1 Steinways free of verdigris and in excellent condition.And this is so for any pianos I have seen with the accelerated action, which I think appeared in the 1930's. One technician I knew well told me he cleaned out the verdigris with Perc. which was used for dry cleaning. He said it cleaned everything perfectly but left the centers extremely loose. I managed to find out that Perc was mainly carbon tetrachloride, also called tetrachlorideethylene. I had used it once tp clean grand hammershank knuckles. and the leather came up like new. It had a strong sweet odor, with a hint of danger; then I heard that it destroys kidneys and is a known carcinogen. Aside from the coseqeunce of inadequate field testing, which happens with monotonous regularity, I am continually amazed at the illogical thinking which occurs over and over again. Even now, we find pinos of all makes with centers as good as new, well almost, in excess of one hundred years of age. So a nonexistent problem was made into a real one, and at some expense. It isn't as if there were no things which needed changing. For instance, the excessive friction of the damper pedal pitman rod, the rigid sostenut tabs and glued underlever flanges, to name just a few. These were eventually fixed, decades after everybody else.I do admire Steinway; the tone of a fine one is unique, but they can be very frustrating.Their philosophy has seemed so often to have pandered to marketing peoples' clamor for new selling points instead of true improvements.I find the accelerated action to be one more example of illogical thought. Evidently its theory is that the fulcrum changes dynamically with the movement of the key, thus changing the ratior of the front and back key lengths during movement. Why this should be better is not explained. In any case, the amount of movement at the balance point is so small as to be almost non existent. While in Banff, I built an adjustable action model with a choice of four different mounts for the balance rail, including the balance rail bearing, and could find no advantage in any one of them..The finest balance rail design ever is to be found in the old Bluthner grands with the patent action. I do concede that larger lead weights close to the balance rail result in less inertia instead of smaller ones nearer the front. Perhaps the sales figures justify the increase in production costs, and it is certain that if ever Steinway decided to give it up there would be a hue and cry and accusations that they were cheapening and destroying a great American icon. The list of illogical ideas in pianos, from many makers is almost endless, but we can be guilty too. Ted Sambell ________________________________ From: Susan Kline <skline at peak.org> To: caut at ptg.org Sent: Sun, January 9, 2011 5:45:29 PM Subject: Re: [CAUT] Steinway verdigris On 1/9/2011 2:18 PM, David Love wrote: So what are the findings on repinning verdigris actions with alternative materials? Too many of these posts to weed through. Hi, David Ron N. pointed out that nickel silver (German silver) is 60% copper. So using them would not keep the bushings from contacting copper. What I still don't understand is why brass center pins have been replaced with nickel silver in the first place, and what merits they might have. Susan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20110109/7d51c42d/attachment-0001.htm>
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