Choice

[Ron Nossaman]

>Well as I said in my post this board had a number of shims 
>(well done!).  Would this mean the board was severely 
>damaged?  

* Is there any other reason for it to have been shimmed? If it was cracked,
it was damaged. If it were a "number" of shims, I would tend to think it
was significantly damaged.

>I did not check the crown.  I assume the factory 
>set this right.  

* The factory established whatever crown there was, right or wrong, when
the piano was originally built. The only way a rebuild is going to reliably
"set" crown is if the board is replaced. There are still plenty of people
who claim to recrown boards by shimming cracks, and they do affect a slight
short term improvement, but a couple of years later, the board is as flat
and nasty sounding as it was before the work was done. It just isn't a fix
if the board was dead when they started. Checking crown and bearing is one
of those things I would automatically do in this sort of situation,
especially if I saw a lot of shims, well done or not, and thought the
voicing sounded odd. After all, if they called me to evaluate the piano for
them, I would try to do so based on my experience, and what I see and hear,
rather than on what someone else thinks has been done to the instrument.

>How can I know if this was indeed factory work? 
>The dealer is an idiot and wouldn't show me the documents 
>even though I was the hotel's representative.  He would only 
>show them to the Hotel.  His reputation is renown.  You need 
>an appointment to look at his pianos.  
>
>David I.

* There's no way to know who really did the work, even if someone can
produce documentation. Even indisputable proof that the rebuild work was
done at the factory is not, in itself, a guarantee that it was done well.
As long as the soundboard in this, or any, piano is judged by the looks of
the case style and finish, the idea that the rebuild was done at the
factory, the automatic assumption that the funky sound is because the
hammers haven't been properly  voiced,  the equally automatic assumption
that "factory rebuilt" = good as new, the reputation of the dealer, and the
subjective opinion of a pianist (as opposed to a technician), they had just
as well go for the pretty furniture and take their chances with the rest. 

I'd recommend looking at the piano again, checking crown (ALL points
reachable, not just the longest rib) and bearing. If the crown is negative
anywhere, and/or the bearing is zero or negative, the piano is in trouble.
Check to see if the voicing problem areas correspond with the areas where
there are crown and/or bearing discrepancies. If so, there's your answer.
If the crown and bearing are positive throughout, it gets a little more
difficult. Do a little light exploratory voicing to see what you have to
work with, and whether you can improve it. Then make your recommendations,
with explanations, based on all of the above.

Good luck, I hope this helps some.


Ron N