Checking my records, I see that the BB I opened this thread with was made in 1965, not the 70s. It has some issues, but not really major ones. When I compare with, say, Baldwin and Steinway of late 60s through 70s, I don't find the Aeolian Rochester products to be particularly bad, in general - talking about 60s through mid 70s anyway. They aren't what we might consider premium pianos compared to what is available today, but they are better than middle of the road for their time period.
This BB does have some key issues. Strangely, the key buttons have bushing alignments that vary, sometimes a LOT from key to key. Usually this is not an issue: the button blanks are all machined and bushed at right angles to a long strip of wood, then the strip is glued to a set of keys and cut apart with the keys, yielding the correct angles. I don't get how they manufactured the buttons. No jigs, just eyeballing it badly? Doesn't make sense. Also, the bottoms of the naturals didn't have the mortise cut to miss the sharp felt punchings. I was trying to get enough aftertouch, and removing punchings just wasn't increasing key dip beyond a certain point - and they felt spongy. I took all the keys off and chiseled where you could see the black marks caused by the keys contacting those punchings over the years.
As it happens, I did a two day prep job on a Mason A from 1975 last week (private customer), and it had no real issues at all, just standard work that came out well. Nice little piano. We have quite a few M & H pianos from the 60s and 70s here, I think due to a piano prof (my own teacher as a masters student) who loved them. His own (probably 20s or earlier) was a BB with the ivory about worn through. He was probably responsible for the fact that the department bought a BB and a 50 upright, and the large performance hall bought a CC (and the large hall at NM Tech in Socorro also bought a CC - he had connections there). And a UNM piano student from the 50s/60s era who became a piano technician and opened a retail store started out with M & H, later switched to Yamaha. So a lot of people here bought them. I have quite a few in my customer base.
Now the Aeolian Memphis plant is another story. Wow! I visited it (my first piano factory tour) in 1980, and it was a real eye opener about just how shoddily you could build a PSO. But that was the era of the race to the bottom, in terms of quality and price. Thankfully that era seems to have passed a good while ago.
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Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm@unm.edu http://fredsturm.net "The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination." - Einstein
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-28-2013 01:40
From: Israel Stein
Subject: Mason BB capo friction
Ed,
A 7-foot M&H would be a model "BB". The model "B" is much shorter - around 5+ feet. I suppose the quality control might have been so bad that they stamped the wrong model designation on the plate? Or one of the B's on the stamp wore out - and nobody noticed? :-)
On the BB that I restrung at SF State, the action geometry was completely screwed up. I did not work ion the action - Margie (the other tech here) and I typically split the rebuilding jobs. But from what she told me, it appears that the bore length was too long and the hammers were pitched forward (toward the player) by somewhere around 5 degrees. She typically bores hammers herself, so she reduced both the bore length and the angle - and it is now actually possible to regulate that action...
Another BB I examined soon after moving to California, the key ration was ridiculous - I don't remember the numbers, but it was way off. And the touchweight was above 60 gm. - with really worn and loose action centers. It appears that the weighoff was strictly pattern - but the pattern was probably suited to a much different action geometry. Plus the keys looked like there were cut by a chainsaw...
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Israel Stein RPT
A-Major Piano Services
Albany, CA 94706
510-558-0777
custos3@comcast.net
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-26-2013 08:38
From: Ed Sutton
Subject: Mason BB capo friction
One of my customers has a 1970s "B." It's seven feet long. Quality control was such that they only stamped one "B" on the plate!
With exceptional humidity control, it stays in tune rather well...most of the time.
The action is so irregular that only the owner can really play it, and she's a piano teacher.
The plate finishing is very rough, and the aliquot plates jut out toward the capo, making for very poor rendering.
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Ed Sutton
Editor
Piano Technicians Journal
ed440@me.com
704-536-7926
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