[pianotech] Quick Question - New Type Steinway Lyre and LegAttachment

Ron Nossaman rnossaman at cox.net
Wed Jul 8 21:59:49 MDT 2009


Jim Busby wrote:
> Kerry,
>  
> I can! In our "Steinway School" at Snow College, Ephraim, Utah, students 
> and faculty move pianos around at will (much to my shagrin) and I'm 
> continually finding the legs (wedges) loose and legs ready to fall out. 
> It did happen once, but luckily it was a front leg and it landed on the 
> lyre with the teacher holding firm! This system can't possibly do that. 
> I think they're doing a bit of "CYA".

I've run into this too, where the trapezoidal plate wedge 
system had been allowed to get loose enough, often enough, to 
chip the edges enough that there was just barely enough 
mechanical support left there to hold the legs on at best. I 
fortunately (though by a narrow margin) still know a guy who 
was underneath a B when the leg plates parted company, and was 
saved from likely lethal tenderization by the reflexes of the 
two people helping to roll the piano to the target position. 
I'm not sure what he was doing under there, but he got an 
adrenalin rush he'll remember for a long time when the leg 
went. I replaced leg plates all around VERY shortly after 
that. This isn't the only instance I've seen of this, so I'd 
be happy to tote the extra load of an allen wrench if the more 
recent system prevents this. The last local Steinway dealer 
followed all the other local Steinway dealers into starvation 
and oblivion over 15 years ago, so I don't see many new 
Steinways here for comparison.
Ron N


More information about the pianotech mailing list

This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC