broken agraffes

[Jim]

To the list in general:

Several times on this list the name Steinway has been mentioned as the
brand on which Agraffes were found breaking.  In defense of the name,
let me say that in the process of installing Agraffes in the factory,
an individual workman must make a decision as to whether or not he needs
to back out an Agraffe and place a shim (thin washer) in order for
the Agraffe to be seated firmly on reinstallation and have the proper
alignment.  When a worker is on piece-work basis (he gets paid according
to the number of plates he preps), the temptation to just twist a little
harder to complete the alignment rather than back it out and use the
proper shim may be the cause of later failure.  If it were faulty
material, you would be seeing many more failures in the field.  If at
final inspection the voicer discovers a loose Agraffe, it takes much more
effort to remove the strings, remove the Agraffe, refit another Agraffe,
and then restring.  The worker does not want that extra work charged to
him, so it becomes his decision to just twist a little harder in aligning
to make sure there are no loose Agraffes on his piano.

If a worker cranks down too hard in making the final alignment, he
also risks breakage before the piano gets out of the factory.  This would
also reflect on his record, so you can see that it is a fine line for
judgment by the individual worker.  I suspect that newer workers would be
assigned to work on the smaller pianos, and the more experienced workers
would be doing the D's.  I have never seen a broken Agraffe on a D, and
they have the greatest pressure on the Agraffes because of higher tension
stringing.

For most manufacturers today, the Agraffes are installed by the foundry.
If there is a failure, it can be charged back to the foundry if
looseness or failure is discovered in the factory.

You can see from this thread that broken Agraffes are very rare.  A 1 per-
cent failure rate would mean that you would expect 1 bad Agraffe in every
two pianos.  It is in reality a very minor problem until you the
technician luckily finds one where you can enhance your technical skills
by doing an excellent replacement following the advice from this list.

Jim Coleman, Sr.

PS God Bless Steinway for rooting out that one worker who used poor
   judgment back in the '20's.