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 Sandy and her students on stage.Shop Tour Last week Sandy Lundberg, a local piano teacher brought in some of her students and their parents for a tour of our rebuilding shop and a lesson on piano design and construction. Walking through the shop the students learned all about how pianos work, and the special servicing that we do here at Chris Finger Pianos. After seeing two Grotrian grand pianos that we are rebuilding, they were able to see up close the kind of work and attention that goes into redesigning and rebuilding a concert instrument at the highest level.  Barth measures string level.String level and hammer squaring Ensuring level strings and hammers is the foundation of good tone building. It is virtually impossible to achieve tight tuning or precise voicing if these two simple adjustments are not made. Unfortunately many times these steps are considered too time consuming, and are not done by the dealer. The next stop on the tour was the back of our shop where the magic happens!  Barth shows the students the soundboard.Back Shop In the back shop the students got to see some of the big tools used in rebuilding including the soundboard-press, and some large power tools. This is where we do the major work on our rebuilds. The piano pictured here (right) has just received a new pinblock, and a lot of bridge work. After planing and refinishing the bridge, Barth has driven in new bridge pins, and will soon begin the job of re stringing the piano. First though we need to drill some holes into the pinblock for the tuning pins! This particular piano had quite a bit of damage to be repaired, and upon completion will hopefully be performing better than it was as a new instrument.  An explanation of action geometry. Ah, the fun-filled world of action geometry! The students had no idea they were going to have a lesson in advanced math when they arrived. Here Barth explained how we meticulously redesign and "streamline" a piano action for optimum performance. After measuring all of the action parts, we graph their weights, and try to make things more even across the keyboard paying very close attention to both hammer weight, and key weight. After all of that, it was finally time to play some pianos! Everyone went out to the showroom and gathered around the Sauter 275 for some music and fun compliments of Sandy's students.  Students get a chance to play the Sauter 275 Concert Grand |
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Current Inventory Charles R. Walter Kemble Live Performance LX Peter Maly Collection Player Systems Precision Touch Design Rebuilt Steinways Sauter Steingraeber Vintage Pianos |
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