<HTML style="FONT-SIZE: x-small; FONT-FAMILY: MS Sans Serif"><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1251"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16608" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY> <P> <DIV>Hello Wim,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You see some pianos in Hawaii that you didn't see in old St. Louie!  One of our chapter's past presidents, Ellerth Overboe, made some trips to the Philippines and visited a piano factory there.  This was probably in the late 1980s.  He said he never expected the quality of those pianos to improve enough to be imported to the U.S.  One thing he talked about was watching a worker struggling to glue and fit the hammers.  They were getting hammers from Standard Piano Hammer/Schaff.  Ellerth informed the folks at the factory that they could get hammers drilled to fit their pianos.  They had been sent samples that were made for another factory, Story & Clark in Michigan had recently closed, I think these were left over from them.  These guys building pianos in the Philippines had no idea the hammers could be built to different dimensions and drilled for their actions.  They were very happy with Ellerth.  It made us believe there was a lot about building pianos that eluded them.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Bruce Dornfeld, RPT</DIV> <DIV><A href="mailto:bdornfeld@earthlink.net">bdornfeld@earthlink.net</A></DIV> <DIV>North Shore Chapter</DIV> <DIV>(Waukegan Chapter back then)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <P></P></BODY></HTML>