[CAUT] Agraffe alignment

[RicB]

Hi Dave

I was refering to agraffes and not the entire scope of piano building. 
And it seems to me that with very few exceptions most of the newer 
instruments I've seen in the past say.... 15 years anyways have had less 
then optimal quality control in this area.  Addressing the entire scope 
of design, all the problems surrounding that and manufacturing 
realities, marketing realities, and the realities about both pianists 
conceptions/misconceptions and our own as piano technicians seemed to be 
a bit off the subject matter of agraffe alignment,  tho to be sure a 
potentially very interesting discussion in its own right.

But back to the topic of this thread... Strikes me that there has been a 
general industry wide decline in agraffe quality in the last 15-20 years.

Cheers
RicB



    That's not been my observation.  To generalize (and I really dislike
    generalizing) American manufacturers have in the past been more
    likely to
    innovate and redesign and improve.  Currently they're not doing
    that!  Major
    design improvements have not been part of the picture since early in the
    last century.  

    Asian manufacturers - on the other hand - generally have not
    redesigned or
    innovated but have been much better at the precision of their work. 
    Even
    the new Shigeru Kawai pianos, wonderful as they are, have no design
    improvements.  They are just copies of the same old designs but much
    more
    precision in the execution.  

    Pianos are made of 3 things - design, materials and execution.  In
    my view
    the manufacturer that started this small thread has used very good
    materials.  Those good materials have been used on old, old designs and
    executed in very sloppy fashion.  Asian manufacturers have used
    these same
    antique designs with somewhat less wonderful materials but have done
    it with
    much more precise execution.  This leaves us only old designs.  Then
    we do
    get the choice of excellent materials put together poorly, or somewhat
    lesser materials assembled much more precisely.  I think that is why
    most in
    our community have continued to opt for the excellent materials
    because we
    have the know how to tidy up the poor workmanship.  We complain
    about it,
    but this is the piano business as we know it.

     

    dave