Hi Ron, Thanks for clarifying your points. As you said, everyone has horror stories about lots of piano, but making a few bad experiences into generalities is where the problem arises, and is why so many have spoken up against what you said. I'd like to respond as well: > Over the years, I've come across several Kawai's with bad pin blocks. Ok, I understand this. Now, how many have you come across which were fine? Go back in your customer records and count up the Kawai pianos. I think you will find that the problem pianos are in the great minority - and that, unless something is very unusual with your clientele, the proportion will be essentially the same as with other quality brands. > The worst one though, was several years ago at Western Iowa Tech. We > got in a grand that needed a massive overhaul. Loose pins were part of > its many problems. When we pulled the pinblock, it looked aweful. It > appeared to be made from some form of glorified cork. A real spongy > material. The block fitting to the plate was full of massive gaps. All Kawai pinblocks since at least the 70s have been made from Wisconsin hard maple. If this piano was prior to that, I can't say what it was - except that calling it cork-like is an obvious exaggeration. I have taken apart Kawai pianos from the 60s, and the wood was fine - they repinned with 2/0 or 3/0 pins perfectly. So again, a bad piano gave you a poor impression, but there has to be more to this story. I am surprised that you are not aware of the pinblock fitting in Kawai pianos (also used by other well known brands). These pianos are made with rock maple pin bushings, with the bushings actually being plugs in the plate holes which are drilled at the same time as the pinblock. The tuning pins therefore pivot on the plate webbing, and exert a backwards force on the pinblock - towards the pianist, away from the plate flange. When this design is used, there is no reason to fit the pinblock, as long as the bushings are hard enough wood. Many technicians in the US have a very hard time picturing this, because we were all brought up in the Steinway style of construction, where the pin does not touch the plate (or should not, I guess), so the plate is being pulled towards the flange and down. In Kawai pianos (as well as Yamaha), the pinblock is being pushed back. Those who tune a lot of Kawai and Yamaha pianos will tell you that they are as stable as any - as long as the bushings were made with good wood. I have heard about 1 piano made in the 70s where the grade of the wood in the bushings apparently wasn't hard enough, and the pinblock moved. But again - I have only heard of this once, and although there are undoubtedly others, condemning the brand because of the method of construction reflects a lack of understanding. I do think that your not realizing why the pinblocks have not been fit has made you feel like the company just didn't know any better - which is a natural conclusion giving the usual technician training. I am guilty of making the same mistake in the past, and when I first talked to one of the (very well educated and experienced) Kawai engineers in Japan about it, the concept was explained fully. I was duly corrected and told him so - but I told him they should still fit the pinblocks just to keep the technicians happy :-) A few years back Kawai America had a strung plate out of a Kawai grand piano with pinblock attached (the piano had been dropped from the back of a moving truck, so we were taking it apart). We loosened the plate screws, and sure enough the pinblock swung back, away from the flange just as the engineer said it would. > I've had to reglue the sides back on one of their consoles, Happens to every brand from time to time. Literally. >and I've seen everything from bad pin blocks, to styrofoam cheekblocks Structural foam is not styrofoam, and the structural foam is not used in cheekblocks, but in some music rack guide rails. Kawai doesn't shy away from using modern materials when they are beneficial. Calling it styrofoam reflects a bias that is coloring your opinions - I suspect that you know what styrofoam actually looks like. >, to cabinets that were made from some form of material similar to >masonite or cardboard. Almost every brand of pianos made today, with very few exceptions, makes their lower cost upright piano cabinets with medium density fiberboard, or MDF. A lot of very expensive furniture uses it also. When a piano like this is dropped or submerged in water the stuff looks awful - like cardboard. It actually is very stable and nice to build things from, though. You will have to look long and hard to find upright piano cabinets made with the kind of solid oak cores and super thick double veneers that were used in years past. Poplar cores and thin veneers are in a few brands, laminated hardwoods is in others (including some Kawai models), and MDF is in most. I don't think that the objections you've received here on the list are because you are sharing your experiences about problems with particular pianos, but that you are condemning a brand in general because of those experiences. You need to realize that all of us tune these pianos regularly, and saying that Kawai pinblocks will generally go bad in 10 years is telling hundreds of technicians something that they know from experiences is not true - our collective experience does not support your statement, so some have been kind enough (from Kawai's perspective) to say so. I would like to mention that I have a Kawai model 600 grand at home that my wife's family purchased new in 1968, making the piano well past your 10 year pinblock figure. :-) It has been tuned regularly it's whole life, the tuning pins are still tight, and it stays in tune incredibly well, in spite of our daily playing (those who have heard me will tell you that I am not a light player). The pinblock does not touch the plate flange anywhere along the width of the piano! This is not an exceptional example - there are thousands and thousands of similar pianos out there in use. Thanks for giving this issue a little re-consideration, Ron. I hope that you get the chance to rebuild some more Kawai grands that don't give you such a negative impression. By the way, for those who are wondering, if you do replace the pinblock in a Kawai, then I recommend that you go ahead and fit the block to the flange, because duplicating the hard bushing / drilling procedure used in the factory is not easy. The replacement bushings are generally pretty soft, and most rebuilders' shop procedures make pinblock-to-flange fitting a standard operation anyway. A last comment to all posters of this list, if I may. One of the problems with any of us posting strong negative comments on this list, whether about people or about piano brands, is that these comments are very commonly reprinted and mis-used. It is very easy for a competing dealer to pull a message like Ron's from the archives, print it out, and make photo copies to show all of their customers as to why they should never buy a Kawai piano. Once a critical comment is written, whether it is accurate of not, whether opinion or fact, it becomes a permanently archived nasty tool which can be used against the target of the criticism. I am sure that negative posts like Ron's are very rarely done with intentional malice in mind - but they are still used in very malicious ways, being posted as "a fact from the PTG piano technician's list." I have no doubt that Ron's post will be returned to us at Kawai many times by Kawai dealers who get a copy from a customer, who was given it by a competitor talking down Kawai. It happens every time a post like that is written. This is why manufacturers cringe at these kinds of public posts - no matter how they were intended, they are almost always misused later, and it really is quite painful. Don Mannino RPT Kawai America Thought Police :-)
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