Czech, please

[Richard Brekne]

Hi Ron

Your post perfectly describes my own perception of Petrofs... and, I 
think... the basic reason they have been so very popular items in Europe 
for years and years. Their basic sound is actually quite ok.  Despite a 
very sloppy action, false beats galore (unbelievable amounts in some 
examples) in the treble, bass string unisons that just do not work 
together at all, squisshy tuning pins... bridge pins all over the place 
(my first attempt at notching and pining came out better then the 
average Petrof I see).... despite all this and more when reasonably well 
regulated, voiced and tuned they leave one feeling with a fairly 
positive impression.  I have had a love hate affair with them for as 
long as I have known about them.

I will say this tho... IME unless a Petrof recieves rather frequent TLC 
from a good tech... they will deteriorate quite quickly performance wise.

One other interesting bit on their soundboards.... They taper their SB 
flitches a bit before gluing them together so that the flitches are less 
wide in the middle then at their ends. Strange.. .but they have some R&D 
stuff that clearly supports a performance enhancement in doing so.  Its 
been a few years since I saw that presentation at the Nordic... but I 
can try and get the details if anyone is interested.  I suspect tho.. 
that because of their reliance on a C&C board type after some years of 
even a reasonable climate this gets lost in the wash.

Cheers
RicB


    After waking to a cold dark house courtesy of last night's
    local ice storm, I spent a couple of hours + today with the
    second call on the only Petrof I've serviced. Did an hour and
    a half of regulation touch up, and voicing down the rock
    hammers, followed by tuning and further voicing touch up.
    Altogether on the high side of average, I'd say. One of the
    complaints presented this trip was the low tenor honk, which
    some needling and Vise-Grip mass loading indicated could be
    made tolerable. Next tuning, I'll bring the means and we'll
    kick brass. I didn't much like the feel of the pinblock, and
    the bridge pins were already producing false beats, but aside
    from these standard features (and the near universal rock
    hammers), I am favorably impressed. I've seen a whole lot of
    new pianos that were a whole lot worse, which is an
    endorsement you can build whole ad campaigns on these days.
    It'll be interesting to follow the deterioration rate of the
    thing through the years.

    Ron N