<html> <body> Terry, The Shigeru Kawai pianos and the RX pianos have all been made with new Carbon Fiber action parts since December of 2003.  The marketing department calls the action  "Millenium III," and the material is referred to as "ABS-Carbon" (a Kawai trade-mark).  Next year the GE models will have them as well.  I've been traveling around North America teaching seminars about it all year, and will continue to do so.  I don't know if I'm coming to your area next year or not, but feel free to catch one of the seminars if so, or at a convention (I will present am updated version of the seminar in Kansas City in June).  This is the program where I show the very interesting super-slow motion films of strings and actions and hammers which were made by our R&D department. The new action has carbon fibers in the ABS material.  This increases the stiffness of the parts tremendously, which allowed us to make the parts much thinner and lighter.  There were also lots of small design tweaks which have lowered the friction (and made the friction more even from note to note) as well, with the result being a much faster action.  It is still weighed off at about 56 grams, but  with lower friction and less mass (including less lead in the keys), it is much easier to play and is very fast. There were other small design tweaks; the backcheck shape, the wippen heel, the jack top and tender, the hammer flange, and the repetition lever all were slightly changed to improve the performance.  Even the regulating buttons on the jack and rep lever are carbon fiber reinforced and hollowed out - they weigh almost nothing. For upright pianos, there would not be enough benefit to the performance to justify the added cost of using carbon fiber.  As far as I know, there are no plans to use the new composite there, unless our R&D laboratory can show a real performance improvement like there is with the grand action. Don Mannino RPT At 05:30 AM 12/21/2004, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">  I am generally aware of the ABS thing Kawai has been doing, but what was their "next step" and what is different about their "new action" and when did that change occur?   Thanks.   Terry Farrell</blockquote></body> </html>