Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum NEW THREAD: S&S FACTORY TOUR IN JUNE - Now with Picts & Reviews!

Great!

I'll be there.

Beth

Fingers et all,

Unfortunately, I cannot attend Tuesday, June 19 session at Steinway because, following back surgery, I've had a small stroke. Please someone take this spot and I'll take my chances at a later date when I'm up to it. Sorry for all of this but glad than someone can enjoy.

Jim,
I'm sure I speak for all members of PW when I wish you a speedy recovery.

fingers

I am also sorry to report that due to an extreme personal emergency situation I will not be able to attend.
My sincerest apologies for the late notice.

whoohoo... see you folks in the morning!!

Jim, hope you recover soon!

Sorry for the problems that have come up for those that are not able to attend. Please be well.

For those attending...

We are eagerly awaiting your notes and pics.

LL

Thanks to all who helped put this tour together!

From beginning to end, it really fascinating to watch all the processes taking place. (not to mention the TOOLS!)

Here's a few shots in a very warm room where recently glued rims were curing:



And here's head honcho of PianoWorld Frank B, with the head of Steinway, Mr Bruce Stevens:


I believe there are a couple group photos that others took---I am looking forward to seeing those. It was great meeting so many of you!

First, I'd also like to thank fingers for pulling this tour together for us, well done.

It was great meeting members I've not met before. I figure I've only got about 23,300 to go :-o

I can tell you the young ladies from Duo Scarbó are as lovely in person as they appear from their pictures and posts.

Toward the end of the tour we went by a room where customers/artist can try out a number of finished pianos. I was hoping we would get to go in, planning on talking Elena & Laura into playing :-) Unfortunately the room was in use at the time.

But I digress.

We started the tour in the office area. My two passengers (CTpianotech and billz) and I arrived about 15 minutes late, not bad for having left at 5:30 a.m.
When we walked into the room, our tour guide for the day was wrapping up his briefing.

Keith Keeler is a sales representative at Steinway Hall in NY. He's obviously very knowledgeable about Steinway pianos, and proud of the company he works for. If you're ever in the area, do yourself a favor and visit Steinway Hall, and while you're there, say hi to Keith.

The tour was fascinating although it was nearly impossible to hear Keith over the noise of a very busy factory. A small suggestion to Steinway: Consider investing in a wireless headphone setup for conducting the tours (like some other factory tours use).

When we started the tour, we walked past the lumber yard. It looked like they had enough wood to build an entire town. As Keith explained it, the wood is all carefully selected by (forgot his name) from various places around the world, and shipped to NY.

Next we walked past the "old" Steinway factory, built in the 1800's. You could almost feel the history emanating from the building.
They now use this building for the restoration of vintage Steinways.

Then, it was on into the factory itself.
My first impression? ... Big!
And the more we walked, the more my impression was reinforced. It seems to go on forever.

Lots of machinery, some looking very old, and many looking very modern. And lots of people busy making Steinway pianos.

Unfortunately, they don't allow a lot of picture taking so it is hard to recreate the actual experience we had on the tour.
However you can get a taste of what we saw by checking out the factory tour on the Steinway web site ... http://www.steinway.com/factory/tour.shtml

A few things that did stick out in my mind:
Steinway likes to have full control over every facet of the process.

~ They make their own (spruce) soundboards, and in fact have workers who spend their days picking out matched pieces of spruce to be made into soundboards.

~ They also make all their own action parts, an interesting part of the tour (and the only place I saw huge signs saying "No Cameras Allowed".

~ They have a lot of specialized machinery, including one that is the size of a house trailer that does nothing but glue veneer to the wood.

~ The hammer rail has a solid maple dowel inserted so the mounting screws have something solid and stable to bite into.

~ There are a LOT of pianos in various stages of production at any given time. I mean a lot!

~ For the few parts Steinway isn't making themselves, they bought the company that is (which I guess means they are making the parts:-). I believe the plates are one example (again, someone correct me if I'm wrong).

~ If I remember correctly, production runs at an average of 10 finished pianos a day (50 per week), with the factory running 48 weeks a year (someone feel free to correct me if I got that wrong).

Ok, enough for now. Hopefully some of the other attendees will post their thoughts and pictures. My pictures are still inside a cheap disposable camera, I'll have them up in a couple of days.

My thanks to Bruce Stevens, President & CEO of Steinway Pianos for taking the time to do a meet and greet with us. As I understand it, Bruce is not typically in the factory, but made it a point to be there to meet the Piano World forums folks, and he hung around while we took pictures (at our insistence).
He even tried to help with the food setup (stick to making pianos Bruce).

And finally, thank you to everyone at Steinway for inviting us into your home and making us feel welcomed.
I hope we get the opportunity to take other members on the tour soon.

- Frank Baxter

Frank,

Really Great Post!!! The only thing I can say is thank you to Keith and Steinway, to all who came from near and far, and to Frank and Piano World.

Same time next year?

fingers

Thanks, Frank, for the wonderful summary and I'd love to take that tour! (maybe next year). Frank, you're correct: Steinway bought Kelly, the plate maker (I believe it's the only piano plate foundry in the US) and also Kluge, the keyboard maker that supplies these parts for Steinways.

Sounds like a great time and it's wonderful that Bruce was there to welcome our PW group!

Sophia

More, more, more!

;-)

Every last detail that you can remember and pics of everyone that attended!

I'll add a bribe...

That is....if you guys want to see pics of the NYC adventure and the DUO SCARBO concert at Carnegie Hall Thurs, and members attending.

VBG

It sounds like we need a yearly tour there at Steinway. Maybe? Is something there in the works for next year? Will they reserve the room for playing pianos afterwards for our eager group?

LL

Thanks so much to Fingers and the Piano World Forum for making this tour possible. It was fascinating and fun to meet you all.

I believe someone is trying to get permission to post a video of a Steinway factory tour (John Ratzenberger filmed one for his series "Made in America")--in the meantime check out this NYTimes series for pictures, video and lots of interesting stuff on Steinway.

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/nyregion/PIANO_INDEX.html

Beth

The tour was fun, quite eye opening, and I'm glad I drove down for it.

Some of the things that caught my attention:

-Wood selection and care; Lots of effort and time is put in this step, way before any cutting is even done.

-The amount of hand work that is still done. Legs and such are a CNC routine... but plate-to-rim fitting and soundboard / bridge work are entirely done by hand. Finishes, from what we saw, are done by hand after the initial lacquer is applied. Actions seem to be entirely assembled by hand, and each stage is checked for quality along the way.

-The look and attitude of the employees... realizing that this is, in the long run, factory work, just about everyone there seemed genuinely 'into' what they were doing. Lots of folks, when asked about how long they had been there, were 5-10+ year employees. Apparently there is less cross-training than I would have thought as well.

-Cleanliness. For a shop doing the work they do, things seemed quite organized. How much of all of this (and the overall attitude of everyone) was put on due to there being a tour, I am not sure. I've worked in similiar environments, and generally employees know when there are visitors, and how to act, etc.

-The company went over and above taking a good amount of time showing us most of the shop, though we did not have time to see the restoration area. Lunch was an unexpected perk.

So, 2 thumbs up... it was excellent to tie some usernames to faces, and to meet everyone. A very warm and friendly bunch!

What a great time! Meeting everyone was an extra bonus. I took no photos so sorry I cant help there. I'll try to add to Frank's post. After seeing the wood pile outdoors we walked past the kiln where the wood is further dried and then into the raw woods first stop. Lots of saws and stacks of cut wood. We then walked a little ways to the rim bending room. There is an area where the thin strips of maple has the glue applied and then the stack is taken over to the rim mold. We saw a model M rim being bent. It takes alot of muscle and 5-6 big guys to do it as they clamp up the wood a little at a time using huge wrenches on the outer mold plates to force the wood into shape. The room where the curing cases were kept was like a sauna, and it was almost shocking to see how many rims were being cured. In fact everywhere you look there are dozens of grand pianos in their various stages of construction. How many if I take a guess maybe a thousand. I saw a single worker pushing a model b rim around by himself on a very large router table machining the soundboard & plate shelf in. On this floor all kinds of operation were taking place to make the rims into a grand piano case including placing the braces in. We saw the soundboards being installed and the plates as well. I enjoyed watching the stringing where the string was put on a tool over the piano. A pin is inserted then wire was put in the pin, it turned to wind the string and then pressed the pin into the pin block. We saw the pianos being painted and sanded and rubbed and carts full of parts everywhere. My impressions were that Steinway takes no shortcuts in building the piano. They could easily speed up production and make modifications that would be unseen to make assembly much easier but they do not because their method and design is to do everything possible to make every part connect as fully as possible with each other and to free the sound board of restrictions such as the plate pressing directly on the soundboard. There is a reason why the Steinway has power. As for quality I could find no evidence of quality issues. Seeing dozens of finished pianos with little sticky notes all over them shows that every piano gets a quality inspection and a final go over before the tuner/voicer puts it in his soundproof room. It is apparent that many of the workers take a great deal of pride in their work. Several were wearing Steinway T shirts that said on the back Steinway builder of the worlds best pianos. I concur. ....Many thanks to Steinway for their hospitality. I will answer questions if I can.

Sorry it has taken me a while to post: I didn't get back home until 4 am and then my router was fried so I haven't been on the internet all day.

It was a wonderful tour--for me really a thrill of a lifetime. Thanks so much to fingers for
organizing, to Keith Keeler for an outstanding tour, to President Bruce Stevens and the rest of the Steinway management and employees for the hospitality, information and lunch, and, of course, to Frank, for bringing us together in the first place.

I concur with Frank, the factory is much bigger than I expected. The entrance is classical, as you see here.



The offices are modern and air-conditioned. You enter into a lobby where the receptionist sits in front of a piano. After signing our disclaimers and receiving our fashionable protective eyewear, we wound our way up the spiral staircase past a bust of Henry Steinway Sr. to the offices and conference room, where we had a few minutes to introduce ourselves to each other as we waited for the rest of the group.

Keith made an excellent tour guide, especially as he has only been with Steinway for about two years.

As Frank mentioned, we started in the lumber yard. Warren Albrecht, Steinway's lumber buyer and wood technologist, travels the world to select the proper woods and then it cures outside in the elements or in an open air storage building for months. When the wood reaches something like 18% moisture content, they bring it inside and dry it further to something like 6-8% (I could be wrong about this.)

From the yard, you notice huge dust collection machines hanging on the outside of the buildings. These collect sawdust and such from the numerous carpentry operations we were to see later.

Steinway moved to its present location from Park Avenue in the 1890s to take advantage of the convenient river transportation. (So my old 1864 square was actually built in Manhattan. I never knew that!)

In those days the pianos were lifted by horses and pulleys through the windows of the factory. (Reminds me of the pictures of jon-nyc's Bosie flying through the air when delivered).

We were not allowed to take pictures anywhere in the factory except in the rim curing/drying room, so we have lots of pictures there!

The final finish is applied to the piano rims before the soundboards and plates are added. There is a lot of work done in the "belly," much of it with sharp instruments, so the workers must be extremely careful. I can see how flash photography could be very distracting.

The varnishing department did not have as strong a smell as I would have guessed. Each worker has a sort of garage on the factory floor where the pieces are sprayed with the appropriate varnish. About 10 ft? away is a waterfall of mineral oil that absorbs stray varnish particles so that it can be recycled rather than ending up in the air (and workers lungs).

Steinway's workers are unionized. As we began the inside of our tour it looked like they were just coming back from a break. Each worker seemed to have a personalized workspace, with their own mementos and radios. Every department was hung with a giant banner with Steinway's mission of quality production. The workers seemed unhurried, but focused.

I think they said after they press the rims they cure them in the drying room for about 90 days depending on production needs. Here are some pix from inside. (We were kind of like the paparazzi in there because we had pent up photoitis.) Please forgive and correct me if I get the names wrong or they are missing.






Here's Frank among the rims:


Tourists:


Keith explains how the rims are cured and then (for some pianos) reunited with pieces cut from the same tree in other parts of the factory.


Our group heads out of the rim curing room. That's fingers in the black shirt:



Keith pointed out that although some parts of the manufacturing process are automated, the machines don't normally run at full capacity, because they don't want parts to get damaged by just sitting around at the bottom of a bin until needed.

The factory is so huge that Keith even lost a department at one point (stringing). We were glad to see that it had not disappeared, and were rewarded by watching several workers each stringing a piano.

I believe they said they shut down the factory for 4 weeks in July and August. Good thing too, because while well ventilated, it is not air conditioned. There was some dust as you would expect (you can see some on Keith's dark jacket, although it started out clean!), but over all the factory is very clean.

Many parts of the manufacturing process are occuring simultaneously, so the factory is laid out to minimize the moving of the major piano parts to different levels rather than in the logical order of what happens for any individual piano. That's efficient for building pianos, but makes for extra exertion by the tourists.

The action department was a little overwhelming-many people painstakingly creating, measuring, regulating many many tiny parts. I think Keith said that 2/3 of the over 12,000 parts that make up a piano have to do with the action.

A few more pictures are coming in the next post...

The tuners and voicers have individual sound-proof rooms on the factory floor. They are aware that each instrument has its own character, so they voice each piano to its natural character, rather than trying to achieve some objective standard sound.

Before we left the factory floor we had the pleasure of hearing our only notes of music as the master voicer and tuner worked on what looked like a concert grand (didn't even fit in his booth.) A big sign over his "office" proclaimed him Steinway's 2007 Man of the Year. He smiled as he ran up the scales and played snippets of Moonlight sonata. Every square inch of his booth was covered with photos and memorabilia, including a sign that said something like "What comes in here looks like a piano. What leaves here sounds like a piano."

As Frank said, it was a tease to pass the selection room which is acoustically designed to be able to electronically simulate different room conditions. I would have loved to hear our members play, but it was not to be this time.

As we ended our tour, we walked back through the offices and saw a little olive drab piano from the 40s that Steinway dropped (with a tuning kit and music) for the troops deployed in WWII. Steinway made mostly gliders and caskets during the war (according to <it>Piano 300</it>, the Smithsonian exhibit catalog and book that they gave us as a lovely parting gift). We asked if we could still get a piano in olive drab, and apparently Bette Midler recently ordered a custom green piano from Keith!

The two presidents Frank Baxter of Pianoworld and Bruce Stevens of Steinway:


Here are our obligatory group photos (except we didn't have a piano big enough to put people UNDER this time!) I'll try to guess those I know, but please do add the missing pieces and correct my mistakes, and I'll update accordingly.

Back: Keith Keeler, manofpianos?, Janet, billz, fingers, Bruce Stevens, atropos, SottoVoice, Frank Baxter, BWV845, Laura, not sure--sorry
Seated: EHPianist, LJC, CTPianoTech, BethJ


Here's another avec moi:

I had to sneak out early to get to Manhattan for a meeting, so I didn't get to say a proper goodbye and thank you, so I'll do it now. What a wonderful experience!

Between them, Frank, Atropos, LJC and Rusty Fingers have provided a magnificent review of our tour. Thank you so much! --Beth

The tour was quite amazing.
I knew that pianos have a great number of parts in them. I appreciate the fact that Steinway showed us the parts and how carefully they are made and assembled by folks who really are concerned about the high level of craftmanship they maintain.
Another real kick was meeting all the other members of Pianoworld who took this tour.
What I really have to do now is to start my piano savings program so that I can buy one of these amazing devices when I finally develop the ability to play one.

By the way, welcome to the forum, manofpianos, BWV845, and lurkette BethJ. It's nice to have you here and to have met you there.

And to Jim Frazee and pianoloverus, who had to drop out at the last minute, I'm very sorry about your troubles and wish you a speedy recovery and speedy resolution.

-RF

UPDATE:

As I mentioned in my review above, we (piano forums members) had the pleasure of meeting Bruce Stevens, President of Steinway during our factory tour.

Well, I just received my MMR magazine email today, and the lead story is that Bruce Stevens is retiring from Steinway (was it something we said Bruce?).

I've been in the music business for over 35 years, but Tuesday was the first time I've had the pleasure of meeting Bruce, although his name is well known in the industry.

Bruce, you've earned the right to retire, I hope you enjoy many years of fun and relaxation.

You can read the MMR article HERE