Susan Kline wrote: > What no one says is WHY anyone would WANT to do this! Surely it must > have cost a bundle, too! The spinet was introduced in the mid thirties but piano production almost ceased during WW II because the factories were doing war production. People wanted short pianos so some "enterprising" entrepreneurs started cutting down the cases in front of the tuning pins and mounting mirrors there to give the illusion of shortness. Unfortunately few of these "people" did anything at all to the actions or other critical areas of the piano. Well, these were "successful" so some said, "what if we really made them shorter?", and proceeded to shorten the plates, top and sometimes bottom, relocating the plate screws (or not as convenient) and relocating tuning pins. Now that was REAL butchery. The end result is pianos that have been destroyed, or partially so, and may even be dangerous to restore. Thank goodness for pianos being 'over built' during the first 30 years of this century. I get the major "dreads" when I see a "mirror" piano and even more upset when I see one that has had the plate "chopped". Although I did see one that took me a while to realize what was strange about one particular piano: it had been cut down, plate and all, but was a beautifully done job that was hard to tell from factory made except for some tuning pin placements. For fashion people will do almost anything. Remember when cork wedgy (not current definition of "wedgy") shoes were popular about 20 25 years ago? The purchasing power of the garment/shoe industry was greater than the wine industry so the wine bottlers had to pay a premium to get their cork which raised the price of wine by ten cents a bottle just to cover the extra cost of cork. The exact same thing happened to our industry when the garment industry decided suede skirts were the current "thing". That is why you will see some pianos 20 or so years old that have felt or neoprene substitutes for buckskin. Right now the felt industry is giving the piano industry a hard time about supplying different felts we need because our requirements are for such small quantities and of extreme quality that it is so much cheaper to supply the auto, garment and furniture factories. Maple was in real short supply some 30 years ago that the action factories had to resort to finger jointed action rails because they could not get the needed quality wood of an adequate length. The reason: the Japanese had "discovered" bowling and had the money to outbid the piano industry. What's next? Newton
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