Victor console

[Graeme Harvey]

Hi there Stephen,

Sounds like your week got off to a bad start.
I vaguely remember some of those Victors, originally supplied as rental
pianos by some importer around 1988. I looked up some old blurb I still had
and it reads like something out of Korea at that time, Royal George hammer
felts, Roslau string wire, Delignit pin block etc etc.
Of course it does't matter how good the pinblock is if the wrong dimension
holes are drilled for the tuning pins.
More recently, this same importer has been supplying pianos from Guangzhou
Piano Group in  China with the same stencil, Victor.
Very recently (earlier this month) this has changed so the same pianos will
now be marketed as Beale.

Anyway the history of Victor doesn't change anything with the problem you
encountered.
I would more than likely have done as you did. Though if it gets traded you
may eventually meet it again sometime and then what?
Regarding the second question, the tight pins may have been aided by WD40
(gasp-shock -horror!) as in another thread on this list.
Tongue firmly in cheek of course, :)

Regards

Graeme Harvey
New Plymouth NZ



----- Original Message -----
From: Stephen Powell <pianotec@ihug.co.nz>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 1999 1:43 PM
Subject: Re: Victor console


> Hello List
>
> Would appreciate comments on the following situation that I found myself
in
> yesterday:  New client with about a 6 yr old Victor (Korean or Indonesian,
> I'm not sure) that she has owned for 4 yrs and not had tuned.  Piano was
> bought from a dealer who is no longer in business.  This horrible little
> piano was about 15 cents flat.  Tone and overall quality of the instrument
> leaves a lot to be desired.  Anyway, I soon discovered that the pins were
so
> tight that I could barely turn them and so pin flex was extreme.  After
> attempting to tune for about 10 minutes, I decided that I had two options:
>     1. Wrestle with the piano for several hours and walk away feeling
> uncomfortable with the quality of the tuning and the likely stability,
with
> a sore arm!;
>     2. Tidy up some of the unisons so the piano would sound a little
better,
> take care of some misc. problems, and advise the client to trade the piano
> in for a better one.
>
> I chose option 2.  The client was disappointed to here about the problems
> with the piano, but seemed to value my advise, and is looking at trading
it
> in.  Thankfully she wasn't too keen on the look of the piano in this huge
> house (pots of money!)
>
> Q. Do you think I did the right thing or should I have worked harder to
> improve the PSO?  What if the piano had belonged to less affluent owners?
> Q. Why are these  Asian (not Japanese) pianos coming out with such tight
> tuning pins?  I just don't think the pins need to be nearly that tight.
Is
> there an easy fix for over tight pins?  Thoughts?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Stephen Powell RPT
> Auckland, NZ
>
> P.S.  Owners dog jumped all over me when she opened the front door.  I
> really hate that.  Later damn dog grabbed something from my case and ran
and
> hid under a bed!  They wrestled a packet of voicing needles out of it's
> mouth.  I was wishing it would swallow them and leave me alone!! (I like
> animals really!).
>
>