[pianotech] making the Gen-u-whine Steinway

[David Love]

You are right, stories behind certain procedures surely do change.  Were you
able to look back through the Steinway manufacturing history you would
probably find that certain procedures came about by accident. That might
even go for compression crowing.  Explanations came later and so are subject
to modification.  Steinway generally is not very forthcoming about
manufacturing and design specifics but then most manufacturers aren't.  I
recall asking them what their design speaking lengths were for a certain
model once, even though I could certainly go to a piano and measure, they
wouldn't tell me.  Since there is a somewhat random element in the
manufacturing that might cause deviations from the design target perhaps
they didn't want it out there that this particular piano was done wrong.  I
don't really blame them for that.  I don't tell anyone all my design
protocols either.

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com


-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2012 11:08 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] making the Gen-u-whine Steinway

On 5/3/2012 12:07 PM, David Love wrote:
> The employees may not know but that doesn't mean that there isn't
> some design intent. They likely just do what they are told. I don't
> imagine anyone is going rogue there.

Rogue wasn't the implication, but the story (reason) behind any given 
procedure ought to be fairly consistent within the company instead of 
leaving it up to the individual employees to make up as they go along. 
It just needs to be established once for any given process, and stuck 
to, but in the years I've been in the business, it hasn't. This seems 
strange to me. No, I don't have documentation or sworn witnesses, but 
something as commonly questioned as verdigris and what the waxy gunk is 
has produced all sorts of answers, non answers, and contradictory 
stories from Steinway representatives through the years. One of many 
which hasn't produced a stable answer through the years. I'm not trying 
to start a fight or debate, but I do wonder why it's so difficult to get 
something you can actually focus on and discern the shape of from Steinway.

Ron N