has anyone ever tried this?

[Gary Fluke]

Michael,

I sold Kawais along with thirteen other piano brands (lots of them Aeolian) 
at a large store in the late seventies.  They would come all the way from 
Japan and usually be in an amazingly decent state of tune, especially 
considering the trip by sea.  They put the American and Korean pianos to 
absolute shame when it came to quality of construction, preparation and 
tuning stability.  Having said that, my very limited experience with 
American made Yamahas has been good so far.


Gary Fluke
Snohomish, WA

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Magness" <IFixPianos at yahoo.com>
To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 6:59 AM
Subject: Re: has anyone ever tried this?


> On Nov 8, 2007 7:35 AM, Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net> wrote:
>>
>> > Good info....thanks.
>> >
>> > Brian P. Doepke, (dep-kee)
>>
>> Sure. I spent a whole lot of hours over the years trying to
>> find information on long term creep, or stretch, of steel
>> under moderate load at room temperature, and that's all I've
>> found. Apparently, it's so inconsequential as to be not worth
>> mention in the references.
>> Ron N
>>
> The "stabilization of a new piano is possible to some extent,
> referring back to an earlier post of mine (that I would rather
> forget)regarding seating of strings, which I am not bringing up again
> or advocating at this time. I mentioned a friend and mentor of mine
> had seen film of the stringing department at a Japanese factory. In
> that film they carefully, using a brass drift and small hammer "set"
> all of the bends at hitch and bridge pulled the wire up at the
> agraffes or capo set the coils with coil setters. He being a rebuilder
> adopted this practice and found he had less "chipping" to do and the
> pianos stabilized faster.
>
> I have been on the receiving end of this Japanese manufacturing
> treatment. When I first began tuning for a Kawai dealer over 25 years
> ago the entire line was made in Hamamatsu, Japan. The pianos would
> arrive boxed, on a skid wrapped in a heavy plastic wrap, no not
> wrapped, sealed and when opened and removed from the skid and the
> action was untied  the piano would be in tune with itself, usually
> about 25c sharp! It wasn't perfectly in tune, there were rough unisons
> here and there but for the most part it was, decently, by octaves, in
> tune. Within a week to ten days it would go out of tune depending on
> time of year, summer/fall took a little longer. These were verticals
> for the most part with the occasional grand.
> My belief was that all of the pianos strung there received the
> treatment described above and after the chipping and rough tuning were
> fine tuned that 25c sharp to allow for stretch while they were
> warehoused. They were then sealed in the plastic which also sealed the
> humid air of the Japanese islands in with the piano allowing it to
> remain sharp until opened.
> I would "floor tune" them until sold and found that although they
> needed the requisete 3 or 4 tunings in the first year it wasn't nearly
> as much as the american brands I had been used to. When I returned to
> tune them after 3 months they weren't all THAT out of tune compared to
> Baldwins, Wurlies, Kimballs etc.
>
> Mike
> -- 
> Knowledge is realizing that the street is one-way, wisdom is looking
> both directions anyway.
> Michael Magness
> Magness Piano Service
> 608-786-4404
> www.IFixPianos.com
> email mike at ifixpianos.com
>