I can't thank you all enough for all of your input regarding Feurich as well as the rebuild of the Hamburg Steinway D. Now, If you have a little more information, maybe you can and will help me deal with this problem The Hamburg Steinway D. Concert Grand which I have mentioned has quite a history. Some probrably 15 maybe 20 years ago, this piano belonged to a Steinway artist who was coming from Europe, as I understand, to do a concert tour. While the piano was setting on the dock, a fork lift ran into the right corner of the piano and ripped it away from the piano and pin block. A rebuilder in Orlando, Florida got hold of the piano and rebuilt it. My large church here in Vero Beach, which doubles as the center of our Symphonic Association as well as the Accademy for performing arts ended up buying the piano at the direction of their music director who for what it is worth holds a PHD in piano performance as well as organ from the Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati,OH. I have quite a bit of rebuilding experience of my own but since coming to Florida, I have eased into a little bit of retirement and tune, do minor repair and quite a bit of action work. I have been amazed at how nice this Hamburg is considering it's history. The only real problem I have had with the piano is a pretty wild last octave through 88. which I suspect is do to its collision with the lift truck. I have tried many things to clear it up and it is much better than when I started but it still leaves a lot to be desired. I think it is important to note that every artist we have had, loves this piano. I have never had one complaint on a concert tuning, I have asked, the artists, the last being a great Itilian Steinway artis to criticize the piano. His only complaint was that a couple hammers dribbled in the bass when he plaid it softly. The piece he played was the Rachmaninhoff 18 varitions on a theme of Paganini. It brought down the house. There is no question with me that the action needs new hammers and shanks. The knuckles are pretty worn and the hammers have gone through their last resurface and voicing, The piano is loosing a lot of it's umph because of this.The strings, plate, and soundboard look like new. The piano definately needs refinished so personally, Other than the high treble, of which I seem to be the only complainer, I think the piano only really needs the action updated and the piano refinished. This Church is in the middle of a huge expansion project which will increase the size considerably and I think they are thinking the total rebuild would get the piano out of their way during this construction. I personally feel that that added $10,000+ dolars being spent to send this piano to Europe would be better spent by donating it to a soup kitchen---especially during these times. I have told them that I wasn't very excited having the piano sitting on it's side in some storage facilty. I have made arrangements for its storage at a couple of other places, one being another church that our church has faith in . If any of you know of a really really great rebuild shop state side that you, being in my situation, would not hesitate to use, I would really be happy with your referral..\ Please don't forget, I gotta live with this. Thank you so very very much for all off your input. You are more help than you will ever know. Ron May -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090502/e8e3d88f/attachment.html>
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