Piano Designers are Sadists reply

[pianoman]

I know the answer to one of your questions pertaining to why they put
catches on the lids of pianos.  It is obvious really, to keep it from
falling up!
James Grebe
R.P.T. of the P.T.G. from St. Louis, MO. USA, Earth
Piano Service and Piano Periperals
pianoman@inlink.com            May I listen as well as I hear.

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> From: Michael Jorgensen <Michael.Jorgensen@cmich.edu>
> To: Pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Piano Designers are Sadists
> Date: Friday, June 19, 1998 11:53 AM
> 
> Think I'm Paranoid?,
>      Why do they design wood dowel letoff buttons coupled with extra
> long jack regulating screws?
>      Why do they design pianos which are hard to figure out how to get
> open, humiliating even the most experienced techs?
>      What's the real reason they invented the sostinuto?
>      Why are lid props placed so you can't put even the shortest tuning
> lever on the top pins parallel to the string?
>      Why are console lids designed to go "Bang" when you close them so
> the customer thinks you hit their piano with a sledge?
>      Why do they always play around with the specs on action replacement
> parts just enough to fool the tech into still using them, yet just
> enough to cause all kinds of problems?  (that must have taken some
> careful study!)
>      Why do they design fall boards to catch pencils and shoot them
> right into the capstans where they can do the most harm?
>      Why do they have sixteen screws to remove an action with the two
> fall board ones too close to the the case with end blocks carefully
> designed to bounce these microscopic screws on the floor to hide in the
> shag rug or down the crack along the key?
>     Why do replacement hammer shanks have extra long drop screws to hit
> the pinblock and give you three choices--cut em off, plane down the
> pinblock or lower the drop one inch?
>     Why do they put any locks on pianos? 
>     Why do console/studio fallboards have to make it impossible to
> regulate capstans without removal and then be a mental test on how to
> put them back? (afew you can tip up, but watch out they're designed to
> fall and kill your wrists)
>     Why do they design lids and capo bars to force us to use longer
> tuning hammer tips and get poorer results?
>     Why don't they use the right amount of counterbearing so the piano
> can be easily tuned and stable?
>     Why design an action so you can't get a wippen out without removing
> all kinds of stuff?
>     Why do they design music racks held together with microscopic screws
> which can't carry any load and cannot be "redesigned"?
>      Why do they design the tenor strings to have such low tension they
> go wild one month into a weather change? (Who cares about an even tenor
> break if the thing is going to have bar room octaves that fast!)
>      Why use those buzzy continuous hinges anywhere on a piano?
>      Why don't they support a grand music desk somewhere along its 
> length instead of just the two ends using only a quarter inch of wood?
>      Why would anyone design a lid so to be opened the piano has to come
> away from the wall?
>      All pianos should have toe blocks!
>      Why can't the Japanesse and Americans all use the same wire size
> number for the same size string?
>      Why do the Russians reverse the order of the tuning pins in the
> bass so the tuner gets confused about which pin to be on and breaks a
> string?
>      Why do they design trapwork to rub on each other?
>      Why do they design it so the pedal rods have to fall out of place
> when the action is removed?
>      Why do they design pedal lyres to come apart?
>      Why do they design the braces to fall out?
>      Why did they ever have to invent the una-chorda pedal?  can't
> pianists learn to play soft without it? doesn't it add an awful lot of
> cost with very little gain?
>      Then there's those fake pedals, connected to the same trap lever!
> I had one customer freaked with amazement when they saw that!
>      
> 
> Boy am I glad it's Friday!