<HTML>In a message dated 6/3/03 3:10:01 AM Central Daylight = Time, davner@kaosol.net writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT= : 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Does anyone call Steinway about= these heavy actions?  What do they say?  Or do they deny any accu= sations of having built anything "wrong"?  Or is it not "wrong", but ju= st heavy to certain players?    Has Steinway changed capstan alignment or angle or knuckle size= recently?      If this were a new company just starting up, I could see how th= ere might be action problems to iron out, but if a certain size action is ba= sically the same as the one in front of or behind it on the assembly line, h= ow can there be that much variance?     --David Nereson, RPT </BLOCKQUOTE> As Ed and Ric said, action making is an art, and all pianos should be preppe= d. But more important, and this is what I asked about before, is given that = each action is different, the player needs to pick out the piano he/she like= s. If, after a couple of years, the player complains about the action, we ne= ed to ask, "Is it any different from when you first got the piano?" Actions = are kind of like a pair of shoes. If they don't fit and feel good when you f= irst put them on, you can't "wear them in." With an action, there is not goi= ng to be much difference in the way it feels in the first couple of years, u= nless there is something wrong. But I don't think we should try to do some w= holesale changes to an action that wasn't put there in the first place. Beca= use when you change one thing adjustment, it has an effect on the other adju= stments. This is why artists try out all the pianos in Steinway Hall to pick out the = one they like the best. When we bought our B and D, the chair of our departm= ent, who is also a concert pianist, went to NY to pick out the piano he like= d best. When I sold pianos, and when I advice people on buying pianos, I tel= l them to lookt for three things in a piano, how does it look, how does it s= ound and how does it feel. If any one of those three is not right, look for = another piano. In other words, with regard to the customer who complained about the heavy a= ction on a 3 or 4 year old Steinway, the first thing we need to ask is, "Is = this what you bought?" If it is, there isn't much we can do to change it. <B= R> Wim </HTML>