Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Keys sticking on Baldwin Acrosonic?

I live near Buffalo NY. I bought a used 1989 Baldwin Acrosonic Console for $400 in August of 2012, and was told that was a good price. But I've put a lot more than that into it so far and it still needs more work even tho the first technician I had told me it looks like it was hardly played. It was way out of tune when I bought it, but I don't recall any sticking keys in the beginning. Since then, there have been a lot of keys sticking. I also had trouble finding a technician I had confidence in until I went with one who tuned solely by ear. He also sells pianos he restores. When he came in the early summer of 2013 I'd had severe sticking problems following work by the previous technician, and he cleared this all up as well as doing a great tuning job. But as winter began to set in, with much lower humidity in the house, keys began sticking again. The restorer sent out his top tuner to fix this and re-tune the piano, and I had no reason to question his competency. Soon after he left, however, keys began sticking again, and again he came back and fixed this no charge. But a week or so later, sticking started on an earlier sticking key, and two other problems arose as well.

In a return call from him he told me that he and the restorer concluded a $275, more in depth approach was needed. They said that as with some other consoles they'd seen, the keys were too light in weight. I was told the keys were relatively more heavy toward the front and lighter toward the rear and that lead key weights would have to be installed at the rear of every key.

I find it hard to believe that Baldwin would sell a piano with this kind of problem. Further I would think such an adjustment would alter the piano action.

I'd appreciate any comments on this.

I am looking at buying a used Acrosonic for my 5 year old to start lessons. The seller says a few of the keys stick. Is it worth trying to get this repaired? The price is only $75.00 which seems like a steal! If I get this repaired, will it raise it's resale value in the future?

HManufacturers don't sell instruments that have slow or sluggish actions due to key weight issues, but all to often techs fail to identify the real problems, and try to work around them using other methods.

I have seen some small pianos that did not have any weight in the keys. If it is planned to install some, chances are it was not done initially. When everything works fine the action is OK, but as soon as the centers get less free, only the weight of the rods that transmit the motion of the keys, is not enough.

With those inaccessible actions, any work on them expensive, necessitating a long disassembling with the risk of damaged parts.

To Attaboy, yes it visibly sound as centers getting lazy.

Attaboy wrote: "BTW, How does the Baldwin Acrosonic piano that I have rate in quality among the Other console models that Baldwin makes?"

Baldwin doesn't make consoles anymore. They put their name on Chinese made pianos and overprice them. Not even Baldwin designs.

That said, in my opinion, in its day, the Acrosonic was the Cadillac of American made spinets. Aside from having an action that is difficult to service and a short scale with small soundboard (as is the case with ALL spinets), from a quality perspective, is as good as any of the consoles they ever made.