shoot the piano

[Delwin D Fandrich]

----- Original Message -----
From: Conrad Hoffsommer <hoffsoco@martin.luther.edu>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 04, 1999 3:20 AM
Subject: Re: shoot the piano


> At 20:52 11/3/99 -0500, you wrote:
> >
>
> >Brian -
> >
> >In this Horugel, almost all the elements that together comprise a piano
> >had "gone south" some time ago. ....
>
> >... the white paint - all failing.
>
> The paint, too??!!? That was it's best feature!  The first store I worked
> for sold H's, and my first service/warranty calls were for the marque.
> Maybe that's why I left.  Of course, after that beginning, things could
> only get better.

----------------------------------------------------------------

It was?  A dealer I used to work for bought a container load of these
things -- against all advice to the contrary -- and eventually all but two
or three of them had to be replaced.  But the paint?

What I could hear of the conversation between our finish/touch up man and
the distributor went something like this:

    Uh. No, Sir. The finish is definitely bad....
    No, it is just the top of the lid....
    Well, I have the finish here with me.  Do you want me to send it to
you...?
    Uh. No. The piano is still at the customers home. I just brought in the
finish....
    Yeah, it's about a quarter inch thick...some kind of plastic...no, the
lid is still on the piano,         I just brought the finish back....
    Uh, no, sir.  I don't really think I can glue it back on....

Well, you get the picture.  The polyester on the top of the lid had actually
come loose and our guy was standing there with this big sheet of polyester
leaning up against the wall.

Then there was the bass bridge that was ripped off of the soundboard -- by
the up-force of the negative bearing bass strings -- taking a fair chunk of
the top layer of the laminated soundboard with it.  This happened during the
middle of the night.  My customer thought it was a burglar trying to break
in.  She didn't realize what had caused the noise until the next day when
her first student sat down to play and there was no bass....

The distributor suggested some glue, some long screws and some soundboard
buttons....

And then there was Stegler....

Whatever your feelings about the Samick of today, they have come a long way
since those days.

-- ddf