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I thought the title was: Inane, immature, imbeciles, have no potential.
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This may be a little late, as those items tend to sell quickly. All three are spinets but if you are in the business of buying low priced pianos from Craigslist with the intention of fixing them up and selling them for a profit, there is not a good reason to reject a drop action spinet for that reason alone.
Yes, a drop action is more difficult to remove and replace for service than any other kind of vertical piano action. For that reason, most of them have never had any work that is needed on any other kind of vertical piano such as tightening the wippen and damper flanges.
There were some poorly made spinets, yes but Baldwin Acrosonic, Wurlitzer and Kimball all have redeeming qualities to them. If you find problems that are too difficult to solve, it may be a reason to pass over a particular piano but if all the instrument needs is flange tightening, keybed cleaning, hammer filing and alignment, regulation and tuning, then you can probably get all that done in one day. Touch up the case scratches, polish it and offer it for sale and you can make from a mid to high three figure profit on them.
You will be doing what a piano technician does and is expected to do. It is honest work and it is worth money. A customer who comes to see the piano will be delighted and if another technician is asked to look at the piano, he or she will be impressed that it is in proper working order, sounds and plays as the manufacturer intended and will likely approve of it.
Removal and replacement of a drop action need not be such a difficult task. Most often with any of them, the key to ease in the operation is the order that you do it: remove all keys, set them aside, vacuum the keybed (and usually lubricate the keypins). Then, the action can be removed nearly as easily as any other vertical action. Do what you need to do with the action tighten all flanges, etc., file hammers, roughly space them outside the piano. Then replace the action and then put back the keys.
It is the keys themselves which often interfere with removal and replacement of a drop action. So, if you get them out of the way, the job becomes much easier. That can even extend to the point that after already working with the action, you find that there is a reason to remove it again such as for the repair of a broken part, it only takes a few minutes to remove all the keys once the keybed has been cleaned and keypins and key bushings have been lubricated. The keys can be replaced just as quickly too. Speed with such operations comes with experience.
Some drop actions such as Kimball products have lifter rods which I have seen suggested to tie up with string. However, I learned as long ago as 1982 at the Kimball factory that it is not necessary. You merely hold the action laterally with the rods lying into the wippens and once you over the piano, tilt the action vertically as you lower it and the keybed will catch the rods and not let them fall down.
Once, there was a technician on here who liked to brag about all the high end pianos he worked on and how he traveled the world over doing that. Fine for him but frankly, I would not be interested and neither would most other technicians on here who have a house and a family. Mockingly, he suggested (at a time before You Tube had a video on anything imaginable), that a "You Tube video be made of how to regulate a Wurlitzer spinet", as if that were something that nobody ever did.
Indeed. It would not be a bad idea at all for someone to show just how to remove and replace a drop action of various types since so many people still seem to think it is virtually never worth doing or is too difficult to do.
The earliest Baldwin Acrosonic models often had very beautiful cases. In my opinion, they were gems of American craftsmanship. Some had beautiful veneers and distinctively designed cases. The third listing you showed was one of those. From what the people selling it have said, however, it does need the kind of care that only a dedicated, professional piano technician can provide.
As time went on, the Acrosonic had a plainer looking case but all of them had the same scale design and most of them, the same kind of drop action. If you look on the topic, "Educating Lucas", you will see a fairly detailed photo essay of how the instrument comes apart and goes back together. The important detail about the removal of the Baldwin Acrosonic drop action is to secure the sticker (or abstract) guide rail. It is actually best done with rubber bands rather than string. Once that is done, the action comes out and goes back in quite easily.
There are many piano technicians who start out working on lower end pianos, develop their skills and then gradually work their way up to the higher end sorts of pianos. There is nothing wrong with that and certainly nothing to be ashamed of. There can be just as much a sense of satisfaction in doing that kind of work as there can be on higher end work. The color of the money is all the same. If it puts food on your table, gas in your tank and clothes on yourself, your spouse and your children. It is all good.
As for repetition in a spinet action, there is no reason why it cannot be regulated to repeat as fast as any human fingers can operate it. Is there any need to have any faster repetition than that? The thread on "Educating Lucas" has a link to Lucas playing the Baldwin Acrosonic Spinet when he was all finished with it. It is the first piano that the talented youngster has ever actually had in his home! The cellphone I have makes the finest piano sound like a "honky tonk" piano and that Acrosonic does have some terrible false beats in the treble but if you disregard that and watch as he plays, you will see for yourself what amazingly good repetition the piano action actually does have.
Virtually anyone who is going to spend a mid three figure to low four figure amount on such a piano is not likely to have the discriminating taste for the kind of quality that a piano worth tens of thousands or more than $100,000 would be expected to have. What is good, honest, dignified and satisfying work is to provide to the instruments which people have as their cherished possessions or wish to purchase because it is what they can afford, the proper kind and level of basic piano technology that any piano technician should know how to perform and provide.
It serves no purpose to anyone or for the good of the profession to denigrate one class of piano. Once that gets started, the denigration starts to work its way up until there is virtually no piano worth anything to anyone. There is no perfect piano and there is no perfect tuning and there is no definition of "professional" other than one who receives pay for the work that is done. Otherwise, that work is deemed "vocational" or "avocational".
Paul, if you get any one or all of these pianos or any one similar to any one of them in the future, this forum is here for you to ask legitimate and specific questions about what to do with any one of them. Most of us now have cellphones that take pictures and videos. It is not so easy to post them on here but once you learn what you have to do, it is not that hard.
You Tube has become a wide open street for virtually anything, good bad or indifferent. If you ask me, PTG should already have videos that it endorses on just how to service spinet type pianos. There is no reason why anyone who knows how to do that kind of work should not want to share the knowledge with everyone on the world.
Please do not, however, write me any private messages to ask any questions. I probably will not respond. Questions and answers should be open to the public so that you may get a consensus of opinion. The more legitimate answers to questions there are, the less frivolous responses there are apt to be and those can be seen for what they are.
If we all held out for the phone calls to work only on the finest grands, there would not be anyone to service the rest and there would not be enough work to go around, so most piano technicians would be out of business. That would drive the industry to extinction. It is not going to happen of course, so if you don't want to work on a spinet piano, there will be someone else who will. You may end up waiting for longer than you can hold out for the opportunity to go tune a Steinway.
A spinet has its place on the ladder of pianos, and its not at the top or even near it...and not just in the respect to key repitition. Pointing this out to a customer is not denigrating the instrument, it is simply putting it in its well deserved place.
Most spinets pooch out at about 10-12 repetitions per second, a good quality regulated grand can easily achieve 16-18 reps per second. There are pieces of music requiring fast repitition, in fact the RCM tests above grade 6 in some parts around here dictate that a grand piano is to be used for this reason. There is a reason why the repitition lever came into widespread use and never left...that and gravity vs springs closes the book on this debate for most techs IMHO.
Piano Technician George Brown College /85 Niagara Region
I didn't mean to sound like I was avoiding spinets.
It's just that since I have already restored a spinet, I wanted to expand to at least a non-spinet upright, and ideally to a grand action. And since pianos are a bit costly to move, I wanted to choose my next fixer-upper piano carefully, to maximize my experience.
And yes, I wanted something with faster repetition than a spinet, since I play a lot of Baroque music, with plenty of fast trilling!
But I can see myself servicing another spinet in the future, no doubt.
Ironically, the nicely crafted case of #3 on your list might well do delightfully as your Baroque piano. There is another technician on this list who occasionally writes and who lives on an island in Lake Superior, is a professional pianist and organist as well as church music composer who has (and can only have) the Baldwin Acrosonic piano that he owns as his only piano.
The key to rapid repetition in any vertical piano is precise regulation with close as possible let off, close as possible checking, long as possible hammer blow, normal damper lift, minimum key dip and minimal after touch. The vertical action does not have a repetition lever because it does not need one. If it is regulated precisely, the jack will return under the butt lightening fast, as soon as one begins to lift the finger from the key, whether the key has been fully depressed or not.
Of course, Baroque music can be played on a large grand but the small piano, such as the Baldwin Acrosonic will actually yield a more appropriate character for that kind of music.
Old Baldwins Acros were made quite well. One that has been well-maintained though the years may surprise you, even at 50+. (The Acros also have a full size action. An important feature that sets these apart from most other, if not all, spinets.)
Last edited by bkw58; 09/08/1409:27 AM. Reason: add-on
Ironically, the nicely crafted case of #3 on your list might well do delightfully as your Baroque piano. There is another technician on this list who occasionally writes and who lives on an island in Lake Superior, is a professional pianist and organist as well as church music composer who has (and can only have) the Baldwin Acrosonic piano that he owns as his only piano.
The key to rapid repetition in any vertical piano is precise regulation with close as possible let off, close as possible checking, long as possible hammer blow, normal damper lift, minimum key dip and minimal after touch. The vertical action does not have a repetition lever because it does not need one. If it is regulated precisely, the jack will return under the butt lightening fast, as soon as one begins to lift the finger from the key, whether the key has been fully depressed or not.
Of course, Baroque music can be played on a large grand but the small piano, such as the Baldwin Acrosonic will actually yield a more appropriate character for that kind of music.
Ok, I will try those tips on the next vertical piano I regulate. I shot for 1/8th" letoff on my first spinet regulation. So you're saying I should shoot for 1/16th of an inch or so?
If I understand you, you are referring to the fact that the smaller pianos have a smaller, tinnier bass, which mimics the tinny sound of a harpsichord better, right?
[...] If I understand you, you are referring to the fact that the smaller pianos have a smaller, tinnier bass, which mimics the tinny sound of a harpsichord better, right? [...]
Here is my two cents: The reason Baroque fits well on a spinet is because the keyboard compass for which that music was written fits some important sweet spots on the spinet. You don't need Brahamsy bass or Lizsty fortissimo to play Bach. It's not that it's "tinny" like a harpsichord, as much as that the sound for the range of the keyboard used actually "fits" the spinet, if you're careful about it...
