[pianotech] Lyre Damage

[Ron Nossaman]

David Love wrote:
> Anecdotal information is difficult to draw conclusions from but I have
> countless pianos come through my shop annually and I follow all of them to
> the customer's home--95% Steinway pianos.  They get knocked down with the
> lyre with a heavy blanket underneath to rock the piano over (that's how my
> mover does it) unless it's a Louis or something else where the lyre is very
> fragile.  When I get to the customer's home I just don't find any problems
> with bedding, regulation or anything else associated with the move.  Changes
> in temperature and humidity from my shop environment to their home
> environment can cause some tuning issues but since they pianos are often
> newly strung it's difficult to separate that out.  Other than that I just
> don't see problems.  

This is exactly my point. Eliminate the one "maybe" instance 
in an entire career, the "I believe", the "surely it must", 
and the outright "Because I say so" assertions with no 
reasonable evidence, and we're left with a whole lot of 
(mostly unobserved) cases where no detrimental change took 
place as a result of using the lyre. I like the lyre brace 
that Andrew posted, and the piano horse, a lot because they 
both are intended to make the move easier and protect the lyre 
from damage at least to some extent. Of all the traffic on 
lists through the years about the horrors of rocking down on 
the lyre, I don't recall a single word of concern from anyone 
about the considerable side stress put on the treble leg when 
the lyre isn't used. Have any of you out there considered the 
PSI load on that leg plate connection with the weight of the 
piano levering the leg out at that angle? Why doesn't that 
concern anyone?

I always wonder why any one of many possible concerns 
arbitrarily becomes *the* one to crusade against.
Ron N