[CAUT] Agraff levels

[Ron Nossaman]

> Greetings, 
>    Yes, it amazes me that the Standard Piano of the World is built so 
> carelessly.  It is not at all uncommon to find Steinways with the agraffe holes in 
> the plate bored so poorly that there is no way to bend the wires to accomdate a 
> truly level hammer strike point. The entire agraffe is canted to one 
> side,(usually the treble) When this problem is accompanied by poorly made agraffes, 
> there is a real mess.  I usually have several hammers that are slightly crooked 
> on the strike point in order to make even contact with the strings.  
>      And I still don't understand why it is so difficult for the factory to 
> space the agraffes evenly!  
> Regards,
> 
> Ed Foote RPT 



It's a hand built piano. Some are built on Friday, some on 
Monday, some after lunch, by a lot of different hands. Why 
should the agraffes be any less random than the plate bolt 
head shapes, or the bearing and crown, or the action stack 
placement, or the string height, or the key leading, or the 
apparently infinitely variable signature sound, or anything 
else in the piano you might name and battle? It's not 
carelessness. It's Old-World craftsmanship.

Ron N