War & Pianos

[Bill Ballard]

>Ki Ray,
>I Think  changes made to the piano plus what the makers did in the wars
>years, would make good read.

As I comb through my oral  history,  Pratt, Read made spruce airplane
propellers, Sohmer made canvas/wood liferafts, and Steinway was awarded the
privilege of actual ly making pianos for the war effort. Theses were the
42" GI spinets used in field religious services, which as the legend went
where constructed sturdily enough to be dropped by parachute. I've run into
two of these in my quarter century, one of them actually paint O.D. Green.

The man whom Sohmer was sending around to Guild regionals with the slide
show factory tour in the 1970's complained that while Steinway had no
conversion to peacetime production, Sohmer had the nasty work of clearing
out all the gluing forms and fixtures used for liferaft production, By the
end of the war production, the waterproof glue residue covering the floor
and fixtures was so thick and hard as to require jack hammers to chip it
off. (But I figured this was an old-timer telling us whippersnappers what
it was like back during "The Big One".)

Bill Ballard, RPT
New Hampshire Chapter, PTG

"Remember, men, you're fighting for this lady's honor. Which is more than
she ever did."
 Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup"