Thanks for the history lesson on the Lindner pianos. I've seen only 2 of them in my career and walked away from both of them. Once again, thanks. Ted Simmons On Mar 22, 2008, at 6:47 AM, justpianos at our.net.au wrote: > Holly, > Recently I was approached by a customer wanting a quote on repairing a > Lindner piano. She told me that other tuners had refused to look at > the > piano, so I made some investigations, to see what I could do. > Here’s what > I found. > The Lindner piano was a clever design that fell foul of poor > materials. > The Rippen company originated in The Hague, west of Holland, where > they > built pianos the classical way. After World War II the company > moved to > Ede. They bought an old factory hall, extended it and started building > pianos in a new way. In those post-war years there was a huge > demand for > pianos, but most people did not have much to spend. Rippen decided to > develop a "low cost" instrument, and they were successful. They > were also > assembling and selling the Thomas organ, which originated in the USA. > During the 1960s Ireland had lots of unemployed, and the Irish > government > was looking for investments in order to create more jobs. They > published a > bill in which they declared that in Shannon, near the local airport, > foreign companies could achieve quite substantial tax reductions, > if only > this would lead to a certain amount of local jobs. > Rippen was already selling pianos in the USA, using the Thomas organ > connection, but pianos being heavy, had to be shipped by boat, > which made > it necessary to take care of sea-packaging, and so on. > They had a brain-storm: if they could make a lightweight piano they > could > ship it by air. And if they produced it at Shannon the investment > would be > low, and for a nice number of years the tax reductions would be > profitable. So they started the development of the "plastic piano". > They > used a frame of aluminium tubes welded together, and they replaced > as much > of the wooden parts as possible by plastic, ending up with an > instrument > of only 75 kilos. Since the keyboard could be turned downwards > inside the > chest they were able to ship two pianos almost in the space > normally used > by one. They could then send them everywhere, as long as an > airplane could > land. > Only the plastic parts were produced at Shannon, normal parts were > purchased from external suppliers, and Renner even developed a special > action mechanism. The main factory at Ede in the Netherlands > supplied some > parts as well. > You might be interested to know that Rippen, in their post-war models, > never did use a "rast" (those posts of 4 x 4 inches). They glued and > screwed the pinblock onto the plate, so all the strength had to > come from > the cast iron frame. > The sound boards of all Rippen/Lindner pianos were made out of three > layers, cross-glued: a triplex. One true advantage: it could not > crack, > although these Lindner models had quite limited tonal qualities. > It is not know how many instruments were produced at Shannon. In > Ede the > maximum output was 18 instruments per day, 5 days a week. > Rippen went broke in the year 1987. > > Generally Lindner pianos are worthless now as most of the action is > made > of plastic and practically impossible to repair when it goes wrong. > Most > Lindners are at an age where they are rapidly disintegrating, hence > utterly worthless as a piano, although when they are working they > have a > reasonable touch. No replacement parts are available and most times > the > piano is not worth the trouble to repair. > Normally keyboard keys can be lifted out without any problem. The > plastic > keys of the Lindner snap in, and thus the keys cannot be removed by > pulling them away: they need to be unlocked. However, often these keys > will come out just by pulling, but the clips will easily break. > Provided the keys are still whole you've got a chance of repairs. But > whatever you do, don't try to glue the plastic keys - it simply won't > take. Super glue, epoxy, Airfix - none of it works. I'm sure there's a > clever plastic welding glue or system that might work - but the first > question would have to be WHY! You can actually borrow the parts > you need > to get the middle going from the extreme ends. What's the old saying, > "nobody plays these notes anyway"? > You may need a mixture of hammer flanges (they are a modular snap > in job > that often doesn't snap anymore) and the spring steel balance pin > thingees. All of these bits are interchangeable (which is part of the > basically clever idea behind the poor execution*). > Do the repairs first – there is a chance that while you're tuning more > bits will break - this is the only benefit of this whole thing - > you won't > have nearly as much of the piano to tune once you're done. Or sell > it to > another owner of one of these gems so that they have spares - it's > a bit > like owning an old Citroen/Peugeot/Morris/Austin – you never own > one - you > need at least three to keep one on the road! The broken key clips > seem a > common problem. > It is interesting that the front key dip is adjustable > individually, from > under the key bed. > Nobody seems to have invested in injection molding tools for > re-manufacturing the clips, but an easy and reliable way to repair > these > pianos is to weld the clips. The plastic of the clips seems to be > Nylon, > which gets weakened in the heat. Welding the clips with hot air is > feasible, but heating time, air flow profile and temperature > profile is > quite critical. Ordinary hot air blowers will not do the job. Use a > repair > station for soldering electronic surface mount devices, Weller (Model > WQB2000 finepitch/BGA repair) with a nozzle for SOP8. A simple > fixture > makes sure that the clip has the correct size to fit into the aluminum > rail. Take a minimum of 3 minutes to heat up, then apply a heat > peak to > both broken surfaces then press together -- done. > Heating the complete clip to slightly below the melting point seems > also > to change the Nylon molecular constitution, and the welded clip > appears > flexible as new. > Thanks to all who contributed, the WWWeb is a wonderful thing! > Bruce Browning – The Piano Tuner > >
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