Steinway + Yamaha abuse, was Re: Who Builds After Market Keys?

[Israel Stein]

At 10:12 AM 2/15/2007, Dave Stahl wrote:
>Subject: Steinway abuse, was Re: Who Builds After Market Keys?
>Message: 5
>
>Yes, some pretty amazing things can happen to pianos at schools.  I 
>wonder where the keys ended up...
>
>The worst case of school piano abuse was actually a Steinway in a 
>frat house at Stanford University.  I wish I'd had a camera.  The 
>soundboard was basically gooey with beer swill, the tuning pins were 
>coated in black muck, many strings were broken.  I was just there to 
>move it at the time, so pulling the action wasn't in my agenda.  But 
>the thing that made moving a bit difficult was that the rear leg was 
>missing, having long since replaced by a beer keg.  Pretty good 
>height match, though it wasn't attached so well.
>
>Dave Stahl


I'll submit my candidates. A Yamaha U-3 in a dorm at SF State that I 
was asked to tune. Not all that old either... Missing case parts - 
fallboard, keystop rail, keyslip. Candy and candy wrappers all over 
and under the keys and inside the case. Nondescript remnants of 
someone's lunch down by the pedals. Lots of broken strings, torn 
bridle straps, mangled flanges. The nuts for the action bolts gone, 
action partly removed, sort of hanging there. Told them to buy a new one...

Then there was the Stieff grand that someone dropped a whole bunch of 
saltwater taffy into the keybed through the space above the treble 
strings. It melted and glued the action in place. Took me hours to 
dig the action out and scrape the taffy off the keyframe and keybed....

Israel Stein