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Been awhile since I posted in this thread.

I'm still at it. The CE-175's are now 2-½ years old. String breakage averages 3 a week these days, still mostly bass strings.

These pianos have a polyester finish. Several times a night, some of the employees will dance on top of the lids (see photos at the beginning of the thread), and, occasionally, the players will all climb up on the lids and drum on the edges - with drumsticks. To attempt to protect the edges, the downstage edge of the lids are covered with black duct tape from the very start. Nevertheless, the edges still get beat up.

In just these 2-½ years, they have chewed through the finish, and are now eating into the plywood of the lid itself. I replaced the tape today, and here are the before and after photos:







After re-taping:





And now, ready for another week of abuse...

I just noticed the photos from the beginning of the thread are gone, so I'll repost them here.

This is an old photo, showing the former pianos, but this is how things go at the Shout House:

[img]https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd....1304072_cd5268b81052543f5a1ddebefb9afa35[/img]

Happiness is a freshly tuned piano, held together with duct tape and glue. (God, I miss Marty already.) Baling wire is important, also, as it can be used for a center pin.

Duct tape and baling wire are the meaning of life.

--Andy

Are there videos of these performances?

Just a quick look and found this. Amazing.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FDo2KuSdpKs

LOL so that's where all the broken strings are coming from!

Here's one the culprit songs probably:


Seriously, kudos to you OperaTenor for taking on such a daunting task of coming in after nights like these and fixing everything and getting the pianos playable again. Of course you wouldn't want this, but I have to think - why don't they just gut the pianos and put digital keyboards in? Then they can crank up the volume as much as they want over the crowd noise and not have to kill their fingers, wrists, and the bass strings in the process.

Anyway, thanks for posting the pics!

Eric, they have two other clubs across the country; one in Glendale, AZ, and the other in Minneapolis. At these clubs, when the old K&C's gave out, they did gut them and put in digitals. They then found out the digitals are no more cost-effective than maintaining the acoustics. They go through six digitals per year at each club.

They also say my maintenance has helped justify keeping the acoustics in San Diego. And, the players love me...

From my end, it's not only fun, but i earn $11K a year just from that one tuning gig.

Andy, I miss him, too. I had honestly hoped he and I would meet IRL someday, and I could buy him a recreational beverage at the Shout House..

Here's a video bit on the club celebrating it's 9th anniversary. The Brodmanns were a little less than a year old when this was shot.

Video

Whenever I'm in the club, they have me sing Minnie the Moocher. :woot:

Adam Johnson, in the video, is the entertainment manager, and the foremost, classically-trained pianist of the bunch.

A first for the Brodmanns today: A broken B7 key stick. And after only two and a half years...

Maybe someone stomped a foot on it?

Nope, just playing it.

There has to be a more accurate word than "playing"

When glueing it back together, use the adjacent two keys for clamping. This will maintain the angles and straight line along the bottom. Glue veneer at the break or apply fiberglass for added strength.

Well, I suppose I could say, "Nope, just beating the sh!t out of it..."

I've done a few broken key sticks before. In the case of this one, the break was such that the wood grain melded back together perfectly. When I was done with it, one would be hard-pressed to even find a sign that it was broken previously.

It looks from the shortness of the break that it was a break just waiting to happen and possibly the keys around it may have an equally inappropriate grain orientation.

I would be inclined to reinforce such a short break with some straight grained veneer on both sides extending as far as possible each side of the break.

Of course we have to keep pianos up and running at all costs but the factory should know at least that this has happened so that they can raise future standards or even replace the keyboard on your hi profile piano. Go through the dealer.

Should it re-break, then I'll reinforce it. The repair was easy, and it went well. I've done this several times before on these pianos' predecessors, and never had one re-break.

The dealer was crystal clear when delivering these pianos that any manufacturer's warranty was null and void, due to the treatment they get.

Aside from that, they're Chinese baby grands. Low expectations in the first place.