[pianotech] CF Stein

[Rex Roseman]

I also have one of the grand's in my clientele. The serial is 1154 so it is
slightly older. The piano was in a church that had a roof leak over the
piano. Luckily it was discovered in time so that all it needed was a new set
of hammers and new strings. The interesting thing in restringing the bass
was that under the string bearing felt between the agraffe's and the pins
were a second set of agraffe holes. Apparently there had been a change of
scaling for the bass and the agraffes were move closer to the bridge.

This piano was very seldom used before I did the work. It was the piano that
I took lessons on and when you played, it responded normally until you got
to about a forte playing level. After that point you had to really pound and
then it would "jump" to a FF. While working on the piano, I discovered that
an ivory key front had lodged under the balance rail. When that was removed,
the piano played beautifully and has been in constant use at the church
since. I believe that the ivory keytop caused the balance rail to flex and
absorb the energy that was needed for a FF level of playing. This was one of
those situations where I came off looking like a miracle worker when all it
took was to do some basic cleaning up and bedding of the action frame.

Rex Roseman


-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Dornfeld [mailto:bdornfeld at earthlink.net] 
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2012 9:49 PM
To: pianotech
Subject: [pianotech] CF Stein

Not too long ago, there was discussion on this list about Charles Frederick
Stein, the scale designer and piano builder.  This week I saw one of the CF
Steins in my clientel.  This one is a 6 foot 1 inch grand.  Stein had a
factory in Chicago; I serve Chicago's northern suburbs so I see more of
these than most of you.  This was built about 1930, and had some rebuilding
work done, probably in the 1980s.  It now has Schaff bass strings, a newer
pinblock, hammers and shanks.  It is a very nice piano, not much out of the
norm.  I am not sure about sending photo files in a smaller size, so I will
try sending the seven I have one at a time with comments.  This first is
just the fallboard decal.

Bruce Dornfeld, RPT North Shore Chapter

bdornfeld at earthlink.net