Worked on a new Steinway B today. As an aside, before I get to the issue, the recent thread (...power in Ronsen hammers..) was relevant here as the hammers were quite massive and the tone, while pleasant enough, lacked clarity and was improved significantly with a light filing and polishing of the hammer striking surface.
But the issue here is something else. The pedal rods through the lyre bushings are quite noisy, a scraping sound. Lubrication was not effective. I notice that the rods in this piano are brushed brass, which looks great but seems to be contributing to excess friction and noise on the bushings. Polished rods would be better it seems to me.
Does anyone have experience with these new Steinway's changing out the bushing cloth in the guide holes or swapping to polished rods to address such a problem?
BTW I also found that the trap levers were too long and both the sustain pedal lever and the sostenuto lever were scraping on the shift iron. Very obvious noise. It was easily remedied by sanding off the tip of the levers but surprising it wasn't addressed or noticed before.
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David Love RPT
www.davidlovepianos.comdavidlovepianos@comcast.net415 407 8320
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