Now that (I trust) the subject line has focused your attention, I'd like to do something a little unusual for list traffic of late. I have a comment about a piano. That's culture shock, I know, but piano techs are a resilient lot, so I suspect you'll be ok after a few deep breaths. If not, take a pill. I tuned a new Yamaha T 121 about a week ago and I'm still wondering about something. Are piano cases designed by moist palmed sticky fingered tree frog type new college graduates who were never required to lift a heavy one piece slick polyester combination front/music desk/fallboard with no available handles out of a piano using only two dry, calloused, "working stiff" front paws? Have they ever lifted anything heavier than their mouse? (don't say it) Whatever the official answer, I have evidence to the effect that they are, and that they haven't. The only way I could find to grip this monolithic front was to lift the full weight of it by one hand, grasping the center of the hinged fallboard lip, which flexed quite entertainingly during the process, and balancing it with the other hand at the top center of the front panel while I coaxed it out of the piano and levitated it to a safe landing spot. If they had even put a small block of wood at top center inside, like they were planning on installing a lock, but didn't, it would have given me something to hang on to. Sticky fingered people have no idea how hard it is for dry fingered people to grip flat smooth panels. There's no traction! Especially when the thing weighs about thirty pounds. What's the average number of times one can lift this front/fallboard combination out by the fallboard lip until the lip parts company from the fallboard? I don't want to do this kind of research! There are lots more interesting things to spend time on. I haven't gotten to it yet, but I plan on letting the dealer know that I intend to install (glue and screw) a block to the back center of the front as part of the service bond. It's a survival imperative. Now I've got to ask. Haven't we outgrown this kind of thing by now? Why not? Are we going to start seeing long hinges on the bass end of vertical lids next, with the pin inserted from the rear? Three foot screws, installed from the bottom and holding the lid on, might be an award winning idea too if they can be made to fit a non standard driver. Service access to the instrument is a pretty basic and straightforward requirement. It shouldn't be all that difficult a concept to grasp, even for a college graduate that's been educated to the depth of his last brain cell. Who thinks this nonsense up? Why don't they spring for a service call by a working tech to come in and critique the plan before they crank up the production lines? Perhaps there's just some mindlessly simple and devilishly clever way of getting that bloody front off that I was just too brain dead to see. I'd actually like that, if someone would explain it to me, because it would mean that the case designer was actually thinking and the problem was with me... I'm trainable. Yamaha isn't, by far, the only problem in this area. Their piano, and this specific model, just happened to have been the last one that annoyed me enough to bring it up. End Rant. Ron N
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