|
Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
|
|
65 members (bobrunyan, anotherscott, AaronSF, apianostudent, beeboss, brdwyguy, benkeys, 15 invisible),
2,196
guests, and
392
robots. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 3,489
3000 Post Club Member
|
3000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 3,489 |
My Baldwin was rebuilt before I got it, but it has had additional modifications since then. However, I am not unfamiliar with the processes of rebuilding pianos as I am currently making plans to leave the world of performance and enter the piano industry.
Based on my experience of playing lots of rebuilds, my opinion is that the quality of the rebuild is more important than vintage.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 7,203
7000 Post Club Member
|
7000 Post Club Member
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 7,203 |
Jazzwee,
Read my post a couple above yours. It explains what creates the difference. Hammers are only one part of the equation. Keith that was very informative! That makes sense too.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 353
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 353 |
This is a very informative thread! Thanks!
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 4,346
4000 Post Club Member
|
4000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 4,346 |
What a great discussion! I don't think I could find this in any book!
I've heard that the quality of Steinway rebuilds can vary quite a bit, so I have a couple of questions...
There's a rebuilder nearby who is selling a 1930's NY Model B. I plan to see this piano tomorrow, but I'm not sure how to judge the quality of the work.
It has been re-strung and has new action parts, but still has the original pin-block and soundboard (rebuilder claims they're both OK). I kind of expected the pinblock to be new from all that I've learned so far. So is this a tip-off that the restoration might have been done on the cheap? And if the answer is "not necessarily", then assuming the pinblock and soundboard look OK, roughly how much should I deduct from the value of the piano due to the fact that those parts are so old? And roughly what would it cost to replace each of those items?
And since it has the original pinblock, does it matter if the tuning pins have been replaced or not? And if so, how can I verify this (do I look for a larger pin than the standard #2)?
And a big question: What other details might give a clue as to the attention to detail and quality of a rebuilder's work, and what are some common corner-cutting techniques or sub-standard materials that I should be on the lookout for?
And lastly an even bigger question: I've noticed that there are two camps of thought regarding the best parts to rebuild NY Steinways with. One (seemingly smaller) camp recommends original Steinway parts (the Steinway dealer for one), and another camp tends to prefer best-of-class german parts (Renner, et.al.) My question is; what generalizations can be made about the relative differences in workmanship, durability, playability, adjustability, tone, etc. between the two choices - particularly as they relate to the action and trapwork? Having facilitated over 300 Steinway restorations either my own spec pianos or that of clients,we have only done maybe 5 top ends whereas we kept the original pinblock,mainly due to the client's specific request. ex.The Japanese as for Steinway want original pinblocks in a restored grand for export. Actually an all original pinblock with oversized pins is better than a substandard poorly fitted pinblock to the plate flange. The better of two evils The cost assessment as for figuring how much $ one should or could deduct doesn't work that way. The cost assessment deduction is compounded because one can't change a pinblock with out destringing and than restringing the piano again.You would not salvage any of the newly replaced parts the secound time around even if it was just done.bass strings,tuning pins steel wire,bushings. I guarantee you will damage the plate guilding and the case finish (stretcher bar)destringing,restringing,pinblock removal and reinstallation doweled and screwed to the stretcher bar and case. Same goes for the soundboard. The finish is usually addressed after you install the pinblock,soundboard,bridges,ribs etc. I have never in all my years had a piano restrung using the original pins.The assumption is that when one restrings a piano he repins it, though it is quite possible. Rod's list is quite inclusive but I couldn't help from notice that even Steinway or Steinway Restoration even cuts a few of those corners. On my spec inventory I use Renner parts exclusively but utilize all the different hammers.Steinway,Renner Premium Blues,Hamburg Steinway,Ronsen,Ari Issac and Abel. If you want Steinway parts exclusively,no problem! Attention to detail for the layperson assessing a rebuild. Some basic things (cut corners) which Rod previously addressed one can assess at a glance. painted agraffes cheap plastic keytops grungy gouged keysides especially if the keyset is "original" keytop overhang over the keysides (totally unacceptable) reguilded/painted plate bolts and screws inferior(decorative)chipped plating crooked fallboard stencil I'm just mentioning issues you can assess yourself.You're not gonna be able to tell a good string job from a bad string job as for assessing the coils etc. The other stuff is addressed by the tech you hire. Hopefully he'll know more than you do. If the keyset is brand new,the key sides will look brand new because they are new. Now if it is not a new keyset the keys sides should STILL look like this after reconstruction of the original keys. http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/M&HBB1912032.jpghttp://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/M&HBB1912040.jpghttp://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/M&HBB1912035.jpgP.S. Could you take a pic of the rebuilder's facial expression when you ask him to deduct 15K for not changing the soundboard,bridges,ribs and pinblock.
Last edited by pianobroker; 08/22/09 01:53 AM.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 4,683
4000 Post Club Member
|
4000 Post Club Member
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 4,683 |
pianobroker, your posts re the rebuilding process really help to demystify this aspect of "Piano."
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 3,760
3000 Post Club Member
|
3000 Post Club Member
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 3,760 |
I forgot one, spray painted sharps. I can't stand that.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 13,236
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
|
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 13,236 |
I am so sorry to be checking in on this thread now. I seem to be arriving at a party as the band is packing up and leaving. Anyway, great thread. One quick comment, Keith you stated; The one thing you can't duplicate is the rim. The NY rim is harder, being all maple, wheras the Hamburg rim alternates mahogany and maple. Hamburg may have recently (within the past decade or less) gone to this type of rim construction, but for decades has used beech in its rim. When one thinks of "The Hamburg tone" most people are thinking of a piano that uses a beech rim. By the way, beech is a bit less dense than hard rock maple, so going to a maple\mahogany alternating lamination in the rim may be more faithful to the traditional rim construction than an all maple rim. (Geez, I wish I had checked in here earlier) Are you aware of exactly when this change was made Keith?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 4,656
4000 Post Club Member
|
4000 Post Club Member
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 4,656 |
Rich,
All of the Hamburg Steinway grands that I have seen made after 1950 or so have had rims that were alternating between a harder wood and a softer wood. This includes ( and this is from memory of pianos we have had over the past few years ) a model C from the 50s, Ds from the 60s - 90s, a model C from the late 70s, and Model Bs from the 70s - 90s. I learned from Steinway people a long time ago that the materials were maple and mahogany and I know that Steinways website also states that the rims are maple and mahogany. I double checked Steinway's website because of your post and they now are saying that certain Hamburg models are all maple rims, such as the D and the B. That is a new development over the last couple of years. Older Hamburg Steinways also have softer rim materials than NY or the same era, or current Hamburgs. I know a lot of the older German pianos had rims made of pine.
I don't know if some Hamburgs were using all beech rims at one point, but the ones we have seen since the 50s were not. Some might have had alternating beech and a softer wood though, and we just assumed it was maple and mahogany based on the way they looked and felt and sounded. It is hard to tell when looking at an older laminated material what the various layers are made of.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 61
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 61 |
Question for Del, Keith, Rich and others further down...
Preference for NY vs. Hamburg appears to be personal, but to me there are distinct differences in sound. Hamburg is clearer (more European) in tone while NY appears to have more solid tone. Hamburg is still not as clear as some other European pianos in my experience. I can be drawn to either tone type depending on the pianist and the piece. I have read somewhere on this board that a piano design compromises between sustain and power - increase sustain and power is reduced, and vice versa. It doesn't seem to apply to Hamburg, however - Hamburg seems to have more sustain than the NY variants and seems to have just as much power as the NY.
QUESTION: What is responsible for the longer sustain on the Hamburg?
(I don't think it's the harder hammers since I've played many NY pianos with harder hammers and the juiced hammers do not seem to help increase sustain).
Last edited by ffevhbtwh; 08/22/09 02:35 PM.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 32,060
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
|
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 32,060 |
I don't think it's the harder hammers since I've played many NY pianos with harder hammers and the juiced hammers do not seem to help increase sustain Voicing can make a big difference, enough so to mask other factors.
Semipro Tech
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 13,236
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
|
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 13,236 |
Keith,
I know that the Hamburg S&S pianos were using beech and mahogany in the late 1980's.
I just googles and came up with this excerpt from a James Barron article from August, 2003:
Questions of Supply "Like the Queens factory, Hamburg has a lumberyard where wood sits, aging.
The Hamburg factory uses much of the same wood as the Queens factory — maple from the Pacific Northwest for the rims, spruce from Alaska for the sounding boards. The strips that will be glued together in Hamburg are cut, packed and shipped in Queens.
Until the 1990’s, Hamburg used European beech in the rims and Bavarian spruce in the sounding boards. Both became scarce, and Steinway officials say they decided that a reliable supply mattered more than the price. The maple costs a third more than the beech did, Mr. Husmann said.
The cast-iron plates now come from the same Ohio foundry as the plates that go into New York Steinways. The German platemaker that the Hamburg factory once relied on — which also made plumbing pipes — went bankrupt, Mr. Husmann said."
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 13,236
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
|
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 13,236 |
Keith, Just for the record, I think it is next to impossible to tell a particular wood species just from looking at the end grain of the rim. All we can do in that regard is speculate. I still have tons of respect for you.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 61
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 61 |
Here's a picture of the inner rim of my Dakota Jackson Steinway Model A. I was told by Steinway that the Hamburg factory built the piano and the NY factory put in the action. Can you tell what kind of woods are these? Thx.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 151
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 151 |
This thread had veered off into a NY vs. Hamburg debate. The original question pertained to certain vintages being superior to others. For years I've been hearing that the prewar WWII Steinways were superior because of better craftsmanship, wood harvested from older growth trees, the fact that Steinway cast the plates in their own foundry, you name it. Conversely, I've always heard that the Steinways built from about 1962 to 1985 were the worst of the bunch due to the teflon bushing fiasco, CBS ownership etc. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with any of this, I'm just relating what seems to be a common perception from my experience. I think the OP was trying to get input regarding these perceptions. Of course "It all depends"
Last edited by Cadillackid; 08/23/09 04:58 PM.
Former salesperson for Yamaha, Schimmel, Bosendorfer, Wm. Knabe, Kimball, Charles R. Walter, Mason & Hamlin, Roland and Korg.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 4,656
4000 Post Club Member
|
4000 Post Club Member
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 4,656 |
Hey Rich,
Thanks for the info. I don't think it would make too much difference if they substituted maple for beech in the rim, I think what is more interesting is if they are now using all maple rims on certain Hamburg instruments rather than alternating beech or maple with mahogany. It seems like Steinway really is trying to homogenize the Hamburg and NY pianos which I think would be a shame as they both have their own identities and strengths.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 61
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 61 |
okay i just checked ny steinway company website and the D, B, M and S have rims made entirely of hard rock maple, whereas the C (hamburg only), A and the O are made of hard rock maple and mahogany. so there you have it - rich and keith are both right and wrong. in fairness rich was referring to a quote that was made prior to the introduction of the A and the O that apparently continue the rim composition of the hamburg A and O.
(edited to including models B and C)
Last edited by ffevhbtwh; 08/23/09 06:57 PM.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 8,453
8000 Post Club Member
|
8000 Post Club Member
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 8,453 |
Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear weapons.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 4,346
4000 Post Club Member
|
4000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 4,346 |
Question for Del, Keith, Rich and others further down...
Preference for NY vs. Hamburg appears to be personal, but to me there are distinct differences in sound. Hamburg is clearer (more European) in tone while NY appears to have more solid tone. Hamburg is still not as clear as some other European pianos in my experience. I can be drawn to either tone type depending on the pianist and the piece. I have read somewhere on this board that a piano design compromises between sustain and power - increase sustain and power is reduced, and vice versa. It doesn't seem to apply to Hamburg, however - Hamburg seems to have more sustain than the NY variants and seems to have just as much power as the NY.
QUESTION: What is responsible for the longer sustain on the Hamburg?
(I don't think it's the harder hammers since I've played many NY pianos with harder hammers and the juiced hammers do not seem to help increase sustain). It has to do with the actual physics as for having a certain set amount of energy whether it is allocated in design to favor power or sustain one or the other or a compromise of either. As for how and why,that's a question probably for D. Fandrich. I know things like bearing,mass of the bridge and ? influence one or the other as for power vrs. sustain as to the scale design of the piano. I'll have to interogate my bellyman in the meantime.
Last edited by pianobroker; 08/31/09 04:18 AM.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 4,346
4000 Post Club Member
|
4000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 4,346 |
This thread had veered off into a NY vs. Hamburg debate. The original question pertained to certain vintages being superior to others. For years I've been hearing that the prewar WWII Steinways were superior because of better craftsmanship, wood harvested from older growth trees, the fact that Steinway cast the plates in their own foundry, you name it. Conversely, I've always heard that the Steinways built from about 1962 to 1985 were the worst of the bunch due to the teflon bushing fiasco, CBS ownership etc. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with any of this, I'm just relating what seems to be a common perception from my experience. I think the OP was trying to get input regarding these perceptions. Of course "It all depends" It depends on what? I think there are flat out issues in rebuilding a Steinway of the so 1962-1985 era compared to a vintage one. For one thing,you run into alot of action ratio issues with a newer core piano vrs. a vintage one. In that you are rebuilding a hand made piano by hand the original build quality is still a factor even if one is totally remanufacturing the piano. To me the accelerated action affects the geometry of the action somewhat when rebuilding the action stack of especially a CBS era piano. When you have to replace a soundboard from a 1975 piano in 1985 you gotta say there is a problem. We still restore newer Steinways all the time but my overall perspective is the vintage core pianos if you do them at a high comprehensive level they out perform the newer ones as in restored newer ones. Of course,a newer one is gonna be much easier to restore for some whereas the soundboard,damper action, keyset,trapwork etc. may be in salvageable shape/better condition, in that newer is newer but the vintage era remanufactures got that sound.
Last edited by pianobroker; 08/31/09 04:42 AM.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:34 PM
|
Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:23 PM
|
|
Forums43
Topics223,408
Posts3,349,457
Members111,637
|
Most Online15,252 Mar 21st, 2010
|
|
|
|
|
|