Itty Bitty Baldwin

[Ron Nossaman]

Hi gang,

I tuned a Baldwin B1 (according to the sticker under the keybed) today, the
only one I've seen. I hadn't seen the piano for about four years, so I
looked it over with a little different eye than I had in the past. It's
around 150cm long, and has some rather unique features. Accu-just hitch
pins are immediately noticeable, as is the unusual thickness and mass of
the plate for this small a piano. The bass bridge is semi-log, and curved
in the direction it should be, rather than in the direction they usually
are - though the back scale is too short in the low bass, badly choking the
low end. Likely the result of compromise to fit in a specified case size,
rather than by choice. The plate perimeter didn't follow the rim all
around, and there were no shrinkage stress relief holes in the plate. Gold
rope covered the soundboard/rim joint wherever the plate didn't follow the
rim contour. Underneath, a set of fanned, taper feathered floating ribs did
what ribs do, only better than expected for a piano this size, while a
brass weight at the end of the tenor bridge helped make for a quite
reasonable bass/tenor break transition.

Altogether not a bad little piano with a little softer hammer, though I'd
like to see what the designer could do with it today with a freer hand. 

The thing I really liked about the piano was the pinblock. This was one of
the nicest feeling, most uniform blocks I've ever had the pleasure to turn
pins in. It didn't feel remotely like the usual Baldwin graniteblock, and
I'm wondering if it was something different.


Ron N