In our restoration work I think there are two issues on the parts chosen. If you are restoring a Steinway for a museum as an example of the art of say the 1890s, then you should use parts from Steinway. It would be nice if they made vintage hammers, repetitions with no jack placement adjustment etc. for this kind of restoration but they don't as far as I know. Most of us are rebuilding for maximum performance. Much like a NASCAR mechanic, we want the best performance regardless of the name on the part. Having "genuine" Ford parts on a racing Taurus means nothing if you don't win. Having a "genuine" label on the box means nothing if the piano doesn't sound as good as it possibly can. Of course on a piano that belongs to a customer, you use the parts they want. I did an action rebuild this summer and the customer chose parts I didn't recomment because they wanted "genuine." That's fine, it their piano. On a "B" I'm rebuilding for resale, I'm using a wide variety of parts. I think the sostenuto monkey is genuine tho. dave -- ______________________________ David M. Porritt, RPT Meadows School of the Arts Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX 75275 ______________________________
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