Casters (soft vs hard)

[Avery Todd]

>>      Aren't those big Grotrian casters beautiful? But when you park the
>>piano and lock the brakes, I would suggest that you always leave the casters
>>parked in line with the front to back direction. When turned sideways they
>>can cause the leg to flex outward (or inward) and thus flex the keybed and
>>that can affect keybedding etc.
>
>We have noticed a slight deformation of the keybeds of our Hamburg Steinway
>D's with different caster positions.
>
>The biggest difference is between pointing left and right, casters inwards
>(towards the lyre), as opposed to pointing them outwards (away from the
>lyre). Inwards tends to bow the keybed very slightly downwards, outwards
>tends to bow it slightly upwards. It's not much, these are really solid
>pianos, but you can feel it if you test the glider settings. I agree that
>the >correct position for casters is in-line with the length of the
>piano....don't >forget to do your regulating in this same position or it
>won't make much sense >to worry about it before the concert!
>
> Jerry Anderson
> Paris

   A "light bulb" just went off in my head and I'm wondering if this bowing
of the keybed because of the caster position could be the reason I've had a
problem with the ends of the keyframe knocking on our Hamburg D I asked
about several weeks ago?
   The casters were installed several years ago (before I started here).
I've been here 3+ years and until I started seeing the posts about this
problem, I had never heard about it. So, obviously, no attempt has ever
been made before now to leave the casters in the forward/back position.
   These pianos are moved around several times during the typical day, so
are there any suggestions about how I might go about educating the
faculty/students about this problem. Just never ending memos, notices, etc.
I suppose.

_____________________________________
Avery Todd, RPT
School of Music
University of Houston
atodd@uh.edu
_____________________________________