Wurlitzer Full Metal Pinblock

[Jim]

Dear List:

In 1952 I was working for the the Steinway/Wurlitzer dealer in Phoenix.
We had a 7' Wurlitzer grand on the floor.  It was of recent manufacture.
I almost bought that instead of the 5'10 Steinway L which I now own.
The Wurlitzer did not have the metal pinblock, but a standard pinblock.

I talked to Roy Neustedt and Cliff Anderson who were engineers at
Wurlitzer.  I asked them about the split wedge tuning pins used in the
vertical pianos and why they discontinued using that principle.  They said
that there were problems in the pins seizing up.  They tried various high
viscosity lubricants and finally gave up on the idea.

Jim Coleman, sr.


On Fri, 13 Sep 1996 EBordeleau@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 96-09-12 21:51:12 EDT, you write:
>
> << After getting blank stares from different folk as I
>  gushed about this great Wurlitzer grand I finally talked to Paul Monachino
>  and another person (whose name I forget) who knew what I was talking about.
>  >From these two I got the following two stories.  I don't remember who is
>  responsible for which one. >>
>
> Clark -
>
> I have a third story about the 7' Wurlitzer grands, as told by Steve Jellen
> over 20 years ago.  According to Steve, the head engineer at Wurlitzer
> attended a trade show in the early thirties, and wound up in the hotel bar
> with several other piano men at the end of the day.  One of them, who worked
> for a "famous name" piano manufacturer, made a disparaging remark to the
> Wurlitzer man, claiming that all they knew how to do was build "cheap"
> pianos.  This so bothered the man that upon his return to the factory, he
> asked permission to design a 7' grand - something that had no marketing
> potential in those depression days.  Nevertheless, the management relented,
> afraid that with his pride wounded, they might lose their most important
> engineer.  He spent a year working on the project, and turned out 3 prototype
> 7' grands in time for the following year's trade show, where they were
> displayed and caused a sensation.  Apparently they were the equal of the best
> that the "famous names" could produce.  Unfortunately, they cost the factory
> $7000 to build and no others were built beyond these three.
>
> I had an opportunity to ask Cliff Anderson about this in the late 70's when
> he was still working for Wurlitzer (after 30+ years as an enginee