[CAUT] Interesting Story and Clark

[Greg Newell]

Rob,
         Several times, but it happened early 
enough in my career that I didn't see it as 
bizarre having not that much experience up until that point.

best,
Greg Newell


At 01:00 AM 8/17/2006, you wrote:
>Hello,
>
>A little off topic here...
>
>I obtained about 20 free pianos from the local 
>major dealer in town.  They were moving to a new 
>warehouse and decided it was an opportunity to 
>get rid of numerous old trade-ins that had been 
>accumulating for years.  I guess it was more 
>economical to ditch them then to perpetually 
>store them.  I picked out pretty much everything 
>that was worth fixing and then personally 
>assisted in smashing up another 30 or so with a 
>sledge hammer and filling four huge 40 foot 
>commercial dumpsters.  It was a big job but 
>swinging that big hammer at old pianos was kind of therapeutic!
>
>I have been fixing them up one at a time and a 
>couple days ago I set up an old Story & Clark 
>grand.   It's pretty beat up but certainly 
>sellable and "free" was a good price.  As I 
>started working on it I immediately noticed 
>something really bizarre.  The shift pedal is 
>configured completely backwards!  The lever 
>itself is on the left side, and the action 
>slides left instead of right.  Thus the hammers 
>omit the right unison instead of the 
>left.  Likewise the return spring in the keybed 
>is on the left side instead of the right.  I had 
>to look at it twice to make sure I wasn't seeing 
>things.  It is very strange to see it work this 
>way.  After tuning and working on thousands of 
>pianos at this point in my career I can't recall 
>ever seeing this.  Anyone else ever come across a left shifting action?
>
>Rob Goodale, RPT
>Las Vegas, NV

Greg Newell
Greg's Piano Forté
mailto:gnewell at ameritech.net
www.gregspianoforte.com