New, Improved Baldwins

[jolly roger]

Hi Ron,
           The drilling of plate hole tolerance is now .004'' Now that the
company has ditched Kelly plates, it is fairly easy to get a good pin block
to plate fit.  At least all the plates are arriving at the same size, and
proceedures can be standardized. The amount of rework and fudge has
dramatically been reduced.
Kelly's quality control is impossible to work with in a production
situation.  This has been on going since Del's time.
The SD's and SF's are leaving the plant very well regulated, other models
need improving, but it's getting there.
I agree about the brightness,  however that's Renner hammers. ( but better
than juiced hammers) They are very workable. The ribs and board are now
radius crown.  Partly because of your input.  Believe it or not the factory
listens, just slow to react.You will also notice the ribs are notched to
the inner rim.
(Depends on Ser#) 
Hopefully the company will hire a materials testing tech, to ensure quality
of all raw materials before it gets into a piano.  Glues, polyester, maple
hardness, etc.
Lets hope they continue with the zeal and commitment to QC. It's shown some
big leaps in the last 12 months.
A whole slew of improvement are coming to the Wurlitzers, German hammers,
new action parameters, detail attention to friction, and felt/leather quality.
Glad you are liking the improvements.
Regards Roger
 


At 10:20 PM 1/22/01 -0600, you wrote:
>In the vendor exhibition arena at Arlington, I talked briefly with the
>Baldwin rep who told me about some planned changes in the product line.
>Today I finally got to tune  a new L, so I got a chance to look one over.
>Looks like a rubbed out polyester finish, and has the three stick lid prop
>- as promised. It also has a fancy new scripty and colorful soundboard
>decal, also as promised, as well as a slow fall fallboard. What wasn't
>promised was the fact that the tuning pin holes in the plate webbing were
>drilled out to, near as I could measure, a fer sure full 7/16"! There
>wasn't a single solitary pin in the whole piano leaning against the plate.
>I was quite impressed. Why didn't he mention that? The pins were left a bit
>high (coil bottoms 5mm - 7.5mm off the plate), but they were unusually
>uniform in torque, and not a snap through a quarter semitone pitch raise
>and tuning, though they were pretty tight. They were generally quite
>controllable and comfortable. The strings were probably a little high on
>the hitch pins at around 7mm, but the bearing throughout was just right by
>my reckoning, the soundboard crown was positive, and the overall sound of
>the piano was quite presentable if bright. Some general hammer softening
>and voicing could produce a quite nice sounding piano out of this one. The
>regulation is pretty ragged, but the piano has been in service since
>August, so I don't know how it was on delivery. Since I don't recall ever
>seeing a regulation improve under hard use, I assume it was better five
>months ago. If this is step one in the new enhanced design and quality
>control regimen, I certainly approve. I also hope they leave the nice
>marketing enhancements and continue to improve on the performance and
>quality control tolerances. These could easily be very nice instruments.
>
>
>Ron N
>