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Otto

Moving forward (and getting a lot more expensive) ... Latest wheeze is going for an action rebuild as piano is 30+ years old : replacing hammers (probably Abel natural felt) new WNG knuckles and shanks likely (not yet certain) WNG repetition sets Stanwood PTD protocol Back action, strings and damper...

Otto

Hi Colin,

The laser is only used as a datum line while you push in / pull out the keybed trying to find the 'sweet spot' for each note. It lets you do a complete section in around half an hour - including the gluing.

Otto

Otto

Hi Colin, The problem with the strike point is caused by the plate casting. The shaping of the capo bar in the treble section (1.5 octaves above middle C) is such that the 'strike line' gently meanders towards the pin block and back again. I suspect that refacing the hammers was enough to cause the ...

Otto

Hi Barrie, For once it's not really a question of cost. If you've S&S 'D' then you're either stonkingly rich (pass), or completely nuts about having the best piano (guilty, as charged). In either case you know it ain't necessarily going to be cheap ... I play a lot (2-3 hours a day), and I need ...

Otto

I use a Knight K10 for teaching, which I bought new in 1983. If your K6 is anything like my K10 it will do sterling service to grade VIII and beyond.

Otto

Otto

I have a Steinway 'D', now on its 3rd set of hammers, which have been refaced. We've had a real fiddle getting the strike points right in the treble, but we're pretty much there now. (We've been shifting the head up and down the shank). I'm still not 100% happy with the result, and am contemplating ...

Otto

I think we've eventually got there. It was a fairly tedious business, and started off by finding that the spine of the roller was about 15 degrees out of square with the line of the jack (and hence the shank and the jack were not perpendicular by the same amount). Also, the centre of the roller was ...

Otto

Sorry for the belated reply, I don't pop in here too often,

No, I never took a photo of the piano, and never, ever bothered with jotting down the serial number.

(I'm obviously a waste of space !)

Otto

I really had no intention of naming names, and I'm sorry that someone else has. As I said, I'm delighted with the majority of the work that was done, and I'm just a bit bemused as to why the last few bits of regulation have left the action in its current state, and seem to have escaped efforts to co...

Otto

We went through all this earlier in the year in this thread http://www.piano-tuners.org/piano-forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10026 The 'essence' of the whole thread was : The strings were never a problem, and what had happened was that when the hammers were replaced the strike point was rather appro...

Otto

I owned a Rogers 5'11" grand from 1980 to 1986'ish and traded it in for a fish-tailed Bechstein model IV (7'5"). It was built sometime between the wars, probably the 1920's, and was a very pleasing piano to play and own.

Good second division stuff.

Otto

In the on-going saga of attempting to return my model D to its glorious heydays, I've been taking two steps forwards and one step back - which is definitely better than the other way round. We've found out the problem with the 'dead' sounding notes in the 5th/6th octave at p and pp , and barring a c...

Otto

The down bearing is typically less than a twentieth of the tension of the strings pulling the frame together at the point of the crack. More relevant is the geometry of the frame itself, and there may well be an inherent couple between the top and the bottom of the rib (torque is normally associated...

Otto

The way I did the calculation, I assumed that piano was ex-showroom (which seems to me to be likely), and so VAT would be chargeable on the whole. I added £500 for insurance / transport / tuning to arrive at £18500 + VAT. As I understand the VAT rules, the sale price of £27,000 would include 20% VAT...

Otto

mmm ... I've done a few numbers and if said anonymous dealer in Oxford sold it at that, it would only have been a 22% profit margin, given the fact that VAT was payable on top of the whole price at auction. I've had my 1985 Steinway 'D' valued at very silly money (apparently it's the latest must-hav...

Otto

I spent most of yesterday looking round for a decent new(ish) grand (don't ask!) and had a look at the Yamaha offerings to get me going. I was specifically charged with looking at the 7' - 7'6" sizes, hence the C7. It was a nicely prepared piano but for its size seemed brash, despite the fact t...

Otto

A very interesting thread. Could someone advise me if S&S pianos found in Australia would generally be of Hamburg or NY origin. Does the OZ climate tend to be a factor in the soundboard related problems as indicated? I lived in NZ for a couple of years ('89-'91), and the decent piano availabili...

Otto

Hi Colin, Many years ago I was surfing the internet and came across an antipodean by the name of Ron Overs, who seems to be a bit of an iconoclast when it comes to bowing and scraping at the Steinway altar. In 2004 we had a natter about hammers, and he informs me that all Hamburg 'D's have lightly d...

Otto

Well, problem solved. I invested in 2 days of ex-Steinway technician Anthony Cooke's time and with the aid of a soldering iron, a 3mm drill and a good deal of knowledge, we're back to a fully working model D ready for the concert platform. The strings were never a problem, and what had happened was ...

Otto

I had my friendly tuner along from Bath last Wednesday, and we took out the action, removed the top eight or so dampers and then cleaned the strings from both below and above using the aforementioned IPA (just got a new litre can from Maplins). We didn't resort to anything more abrasive than a cotto...

Otto

I haven't got a Casio, but I do have a Steinway D (New York), and like Jordan have spent time down in Hurstwood studios looking at their offerings - and I, too, an am engineer (systems design). I originally planned to see the Stuart (original plan in about 2007!), but as Sevenoaks (Hurstwood) is so ...

Otto

Hi, Just to clear up a little thingy, most upright modern pianos expose their sound board at the back, but in earlier times things were more discrete and many a sound board was shielded from view by a light fabric (often a darkish green). The solid board is at the top - pretty much above the sound b...

Otto

Folks, I used the word 'wet' in the sense that it was liquid. The fluid in question was IPA ( CH3CHOHCH3 if you want to be technical 8) ), which evaporates in just a few seconds, theoretically leaving no residues behind. While it's wet you hope to transfer some crud that's temporarily dissolved onto...

Otto

The price I was quoted was just for the 88 felts from Steinway, and their estimate was of 1.5 days to remove all the old felts from the wooden heads and replace with those supplied, I assumed was reasonable,if a bit generous. The problem with having one is that everyone thinks you must be loaded and...

Otto

Oooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh !!!!! Well that was very interesting .... I've cleaned the strings up a bit with IPA - well the bits you can see, as the damper covers probably half the strings' length and it sounded a smidgen better. Then I played the note to lift the damper and ferreted around with a cott...

Otto

Sorry Sir !!! (stands to attention and salutes the colonel respectfully) I've never had it regulated in the time it's been with me (8 years), and 2 different techs on several occasions say it doesn't need it yet - one of them maintains the two BBC model Ds in St. George's Brandon Hill, Bristol (same...

Otto

Hi Folks, I think I'm certainly exaggerating the problem, but the problem certainly exists to my ears, and has only started to bug me in the last three or four months. It's nothing like bad enough for any casual listener to even notice or remark on, but by the same token, if they could compare it wi...

Otto

mmm ... On close inspection, the regulation seems just fine and all the hammers fall short of the strings in that section, and all are stuck (on their jacks?) at exactly the same spot, waiting for the key to be lifted. I note the problem appears to be in the section where the frame forms a bridge wi...

Otto

I have a 1985 Steinway grand, and have been playing it for a couple of hours most days since I bought it in 2004. According to its history it's already on its third set of hammers and was completely restrung around 1997.Just recently some of the dampers (like about 4 or 5) have been 'slow' in their ...

Otto

As many of you may remember from when I last posted (about 1000 years ago), I'm lucky enough enough to own a Steinway D (1985) - it's that bass that does it. As a design engineer by profession, I've been always interested in the latest ideas in pianos and have been intrigued by Stuart pianos who hav...

Otto

I bought a new K10 in 1985 for what was then around $3500. It's a pretty well respected piano in the UK and if the date is correct, you've every chance of an excellent piano, providing it's been looked after. Obviously you will have to get a second opinion as to its condition and hence value. If it'...

Otto

I missed the CLP280, which I later found would have been a superb bargain at £600. Most are going for nearer £1200. In the end I found a CLP170, which is said to be around 4 years old. I paid £820 for it, which is about the going rate apparently. I've been playing it off and on for the last couple o...

Otto

I think I'll have to make something myself along the lines of that digital piano pair of trolleys. The society can't possibly afford another £180 on top. Thanks for the help, I'll let you know how I got on.

Otto

I'm getting close to finding the Clavinova I want - a CLP280 second hand 4/5yrs old for around £600. Before I commit to it, I notice that it's around 200lbs weight (16 stone!), and we need to move it across the rather uneven wooden floor each rehearsal. Has anyone experience of shifting this sort of...

Otto

I've been asked to find a replacement instrument for the church hall with a budget of £500-£700. The accompanist would like a proper piano (sensible girl) and the MD wants a Clavinova because he believes that's the only way the accompanist is going to be able to see him performing his gyrations at a...

Otto

What you are aiming to achieve is to see a note on a stave and know immediately which one it is on the keyboard. This will only come with endless practice, I'm afraid - and yes there will be periods when you feel you're not making any progress at all. I'd like to add a couple of thoughts to the abov...

Otto

I've probably exaggerated the problem. Now the piano's been 'tuned' it is there or thereabouts. To my ear, some of the notes are slightly 'pub-piano-ish', which they certainly were not when it was new. The tuner's real complaint was that he could hear harmonics which shouldn't have been there (your ...

Otto

I've just got round to getting my Mum's piano tuned (1985 Knight K10) after being in storage for a year and acclimatising in my place for 6 months. The tuner said the strings have corrosion on them, and he's right - you can see it in places on some of the strings. Apparently it makes tuning the stri...

Otto

As it's Xmas (nearly) which 8 discs would you want to be washed up on 'by the Sleepy Lagoon' ? My choices would be: Bruch - Scottish Fantasia Mahler - 8th Symphony (Rattle) Milhaud - Le boeuf sur le toit Franc - Violin Sonata in A Bach - Mass in B minor Poulenc - Double Piano Concerto (Peter Donohue...

Otto

I've just been listening to Desert Island Discs and this week's guest was Richard Ingrams (Private Eye and the Oldie) - repeats Sunday. His one book was "A manual on how to tune pianos" to go along with his luxury of "a grand piano" (make not specified). Is this the end of Piano ...

Otto

This is a top tip, and is much better than castor cups as it spreads the load over a much greater area. I normally nail or glue a couple of extra pieces of moulding to stop the casters running off the board. You can use this for any piano on carpets too. I normally use 12mm plywood boards (6" x...

Otto

Congratulations! I'm sure you'll be very happy with it. I was well impressed by them when I was having my Bechstein model IV rebuilt in 1982. The guy who was doing the work was an agent for Schimmel and I spent some time playing them. I swapped that piano for a Steinway 'D' about 4 years ago. It had...

Otto

I'm now going to confuse you all! A piano tuning pin has a turning force (couple) which tries to release the tension of the string. This is proportional to the the tension on the string and on the distance from the centre of the string in tension to the centre of the pin. This couple (force times di...

Otto

Please don't send the letter. See a solicitor - it won't cost you anything other than your time, initially. You are too close to the problem to be as objective as you need to be and I note that you mention technical deficiencies. If it gets into a technical argument you will lose, because they know ...

Otto

I wouldn't trust the answers you get here, since while most of us think we know the law, we probably don't know it properly. My advice would be to ask for a free half-hour consultation with a solicitor, who will be able to tell you what should be done. If you're not happy with the advice, just go to...

Otto

On my mother's Ronisch the serial number was on the left side panel.

We found it by opening the lid and looking on the left hand end panel on the end of the grain just under the lid itself. It was just stamped in a relatively rough and ready way with numbers about 3/8 inch high.

Otto

Thankyou for that insight Otto, and proving my point. Actually I'm not sure that I did. If wood had only just been discovered we would all be extolling its phenomenal properties, and claiming it to be the wonder material to replace all previous wonder materials. The fact that it's been around longe...

Otto

There's a lot of rubbish talked about how digital compression isn't the same as the 'real thing'. No it isn't, but you'd have to have hearing that is able to hear to 60kHz plus to a phenomenal level of accuracy (distortion figures of < 0.1%) to tell them apart. In the late 1960's I was involved in r...

Otto

Carbon fibre has a young's modulus 7 times that of wood and one third of that of cast iron, when laid as a mat. Laying the fibres in all one direction improves that by 50%, to half that of cast iron, at the expense of lateral stiiffness which is about the same as wood. This means that the frame woul...

Otto

I swapped a Bechstein for a Steinway because I found it to be much better in almost every respect.

I certainly wouldn't willingly go back to the Bechstein.

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