Music Trade Review
Issue: 1927 Vol. 85 N. 6 - Page 27
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27
The Music Trade Review
AUGUST 6, 1927
The Technical and Supply Department—(Continued from page 25)
against certain other makes on the score of this wrong feeling, hoping thereby to be spared American Piano Supply
ease of tuning and standing in tune; and that it unnecessary complaints. But it is an unhealthy
at Tuners' Convention
turns out that the moderate tension, easy slope sign when an industry believes it needs no criti-
and easy bearing pianos are the favored ones.
The evidence, of course, is all the stronger for
being given without any thought of the matters
to which I refer.
Up to Scale Men
The design and construction of the iron
plate, the soundboard and the strings of a
piano involve engineering problems of no mean
magnitude. These problems require to be
studied with just the same accuracy and just
the same exact knowledge as customarily are
given to design and construction of elaborate
machinery of any other kind. The pianoforte
is an elaborate machine. It partakes of the
peculiarities of a bridge under steady load, and
the problems which it thus presents are only
complicated by the further fact that it contains
and must be adjusted to, moving parts which
deliver shocks upon the stationary parts which
furnish the load, namely the strings. In de-
signing and constructing the bearings for the
strings one should suppose that the very first
thought would be to provide for the easy ren-
dering of the wire through all the pins, agraffes,
etc., through which or over or around which
each string passes. Unfortunately, however, we
frequently find that these matters are attended
to by men who have never given a thought to
tlie problems of tuning the finished instrument;
usually because they themselves do not know
how to tune and have no sympathy with the
difficult work the tuner has to do.
On the other hand I have in mind a certain
famous make, the design and construction of
which has for long been in the hands of men
who have sympathy with the tuners' standpoint
because they themselves have all learned what
tuning is, and exactly what it means to pull a
long, stiff and tightly stretched wire through
almost imperceptible distances up to a point of
pitch too delicate even to be appreciated by the
untrained ear. If any one of the styles of these
pianos be examined carefully, it will at once be
seen that the tensions are moderate, the bear-
ings only as high as are actually needed to ful-
fil mechanical functions, the slopes from agraffe
to tuning pin long and easy and, in fact, that
every point has been carefully thought out and
executed in the light of a true understanding of
its significance.
This particular make of piano is highly
praised by tuners and has a great reputation
for standing well in tune.
T think that it would pay every scale drafts-
man now working in a piano factory and
charged with the duty of supplying the funda-
mental designs of the pianos therein manufac-
tured, to examine very carefully this whole
question of slopes, bearings, etc., and to take
the opinion of the tuners in the factory as to
standing in tune and ease of tuning. Un-
happily, men who work in factories are com-
monly tongue-tied. They are afraid to talk for
fear of being thought trouble-makers. Super-
intendents and executives sometimes encourage
FAUST SCHOOL
OF TUNING
Standard of America
Alumni of 2 0 0 0
Piano Tuning, Pipe and Reed
Organ and Player Piano
YEAR BOOK FREE
27-29 Gainsboro Street
BOSTON, MASS.
Tuners and Repairers
Our new illustrated catalogue of Piano and
Player Hardware Felts and Tools is now
ready. If you haven't received your copy
please let us know.
OTTO R. TREFZ, JR.
2110 Fairmount Ave.
Phila., Pa.
cism from men who spend their lives doing
critical searching work in it. Such men are
tuners and tone regulators. If I had not been
speaking principally of causes of string break-
age, I might have said much about the tone
regulator's point of view, which is equally inter-
esting.
To sum up then: in the cases of wire break-
age which I have had occasion to examine, none
of the wires appear to have been defective. The
cause in each appears to have been con-
cerned with: (1) excessive tension; (2) exces-
sive steepness of bearing; (3) bad agraffe work
or similar defects in construction.
And I would add that when tuners in gen-
eral praise pianos made on principles con-
tradicting the practices above condemned, we
have further evidence of the bad results sure to
flow from them.
Correspondence
is solicited and should be addressed to William
Braid White, 5149 Agatite avenue, Chicago.
Complete Exhibit of Firm, Now Division of
Hammacher, Schlemmer & Co., in Room 773,
Hotel Commodore
The American Piano Supply Co., division of
Hammacher, Schlemmer & Co., New York, will
have an exhibit in Room 773 of the Commodore
Hotel, during the four days of the tuners' con-
vention, starting August 8. Executives of the
company have been devoting a great deal of
time to it in order to show a representative line
of piano hardware and other piano supplies car-
ried by the new consolidation of these two sup-
ply houses. Stocks of both companies have
been combined in the building at 110-112 East
Thirteenth street during the past three months
and the work of classification and tabulation of
the materials has been completed.
W. C. Hess, general manager of sales, has
announced in a letter to the trade that orders
and inquiries may refer to the catalog num-
bers of either company for the present until a
new, complete catalog of the American Piano
Supply Co., division of Hammacher, Schlem-
mer & Co. is prepared.
Spruce Reforestation
Studied by Government Lisbon Mfg. Co. Takes
Over Parker-Young Plant
Report by Department of Agriculture States
Work Comparatively Simple and Relatively
Inexpensive
WASHINGTON, D. C, August 1.—A study of
logging conditions in spruce, fir and pine lands
in Oregon and Washington has been completed
recently by the Forest Service of the Depart-
ment of Agriculture. The conclusions drawn
by executives of the department are that re-
lorestation of these timber lands is a relatively
simple and inexpensive process. The essentials
for growing timber crops in this locality are
embodied in a new bulletin, "Timber Growing
Practice in the Douglas Fir Region," by Thorn-
ton T. Munger, issued as Department of Agri-
culture Bulletin No. 1493-D.
Very favorable yields may be expected in
this highly productive forest region, where saw-
mills already are working in timber as young
as forty and fifty years. The "excellent" land,
for example, will produce more than 1,000 board
feet per acre per year, the "good" land about
900 and the "fair" land about 600.
Copies of the bulletin may be obtained free
from the Forest Service, Department of Agri-
culture, Washington, D. C.
W. M. Shailer in Maine
W. M. Shailer, vice-president and secretary
of Philip W. Oetting & Sons, Inc., New York,
importers of Weickert piano felts, is spend-
ing several weeks in Maine, accompanied by
Mrs. Shailer. They have been accustomed to
spending part of the Summer there for several
years and have taken the same cottage they
had last year. Mr. Shailer will return to his
office about August 20.
Watson-Riecker Chartered
The Watson-Riecker Music Co., Bellingham,
Wash., has been incorporated with a capital of
$9,000. The officers of the company are A. H.
Kinney, of Everett, president; W. B. Watson,
of Bellingham, vice-president and manager, and
H. M. Riecker, also of Bellingham, secretary-
treasurer.
Consult the Universal Want Directory of
The Review. In it advertisements are inserted
free of charge for men who desire positions.
Newly Organized Concern, With H. B. Moulton
as President, Will in Future Handle Parker-
Young Piano Supply Business in Lisbon,
N. H.
BOSTON, MASS., August 1.—The Lisbon Mfg.
Co., a recently organized corporation, to-day
officially acquired the manufacturing plant
formerly owned by the Parker-Young Co., at
Lisbon, N. H., devoted to the manufacture of
sounding boards, backs, bridges, key bottoms,
bar stock and other piano supplies of wood, as
well as veneers and box shooks, and in future
all orders on the books of the Parker-Young
Co. will be handled direct by the new company
through its office at Lisbon.
The officers of the Lisbon Mfg. Co. are H.
B. Moulton, president, he also being president
of the Parker-Young Co.; E. H. Hallet, vice-
president, he being treasurer of the Lisbon
Savings Bank and Trust Co.; Wm. P. Long,
treasurer and general manager, and L. R.
Bressler, secretary and sales manager.
Buys Shenstone Interests
A transaction of considerable importance to
the ivory market was arranged recently, when
Herrburger, Brooks, Ltd., an English house,
purchased the piano key and ivory portions of
the businesses of Shenstone & Co., Ltd., Ley-
ton, England and Bansall & Sons, Ltd., Hom-
erton, England. Included in the purchase are
the capitals and charters of Elephant Ivory
Products, Ltd. (a company registered in Tor-
onto and largely concerned in the ivory por-
tion of the Shenstone concern), and of W.
Olivers, Ltd., piano key makers, recently ac-
quired by the Shenstone company.
Auto Wrecks Music Store
The store and stock of the Kops Piano
House, 508 Central avenue, Great Falls, Mont.,
was damaged to the extent of $4,000 when a
large automobile got out of control of its
driver, crashed through the window of the store
and traveled some sixty feet across the ware-
room floor, smashing pianos, talking machines
and other articles and destroying what was be-
fore it.
27
The Music Trade Review
AUGUST 6, 1927
The Technical and Supply Department—(Continued from page 25)
against certain other makes on the score of this wrong feeling, hoping thereby to be spared American Piano Supply
ease of tuning and standing in tune; and that it unnecessary complaints. But it is an unhealthy
at Tuners' Convention
turns out that the moderate tension, easy slope sign when an industry believes it needs no criti-
and easy bearing pianos are the favored ones.
The evidence, of course, is all the stronger for
being given without any thought of the matters
to which I refer.
Up to Scale Men
The design and construction of the iron
plate, the soundboard and the strings of a
piano involve engineering problems of no mean
magnitude. These problems require to be
studied with just the same accuracy and just
the same exact knowledge as customarily are
given to design and construction of elaborate
machinery of any other kind. The pianoforte
is an elaborate machine. It partakes of the
peculiarities of a bridge under steady load, and
the problems which it thus presents are only
complicated by the further fact that it contains
and must be adjusted to, moving parts which
deliver shocks upon the stationary parts which
furnish the load, namely the strings. In de-
signing and constructing the bearings for the
strings one should suppose that the very first
thought would be to provide for the easy ren-
dering of the wire through all the pins, agraffes,
etc., through which or over or around which
each string passes. Unfortunately, however, we
frequently find that these matters are attended
to by men who have never given a thought to
tlie problems of tuning the finished instrument;
usually because they themselves do not know
how to tune and have no sympathy with the
difficult work the tuner has to do.
On the other hand I have in mind a certain
famous make, the design and construction of
which has for long been in the hands of men
who have sympathy with the tuners' standpoint
because they themselves have all learned what
tuning is, and exactly what it means to pull a
long, stiff and tightly stretched wire through
almost imperceptible distances up to a point of
pitch too delicate even to be appreciated by the
untrained ear. If any one of the styles of these
pianos be examined carefully, it will at once be
seen that the tensions are moderate, the bear-
ings only as high as are actually needed to ful-
fil mechanical functions, the slopes from agraffe
to tuning pin long and easy and, in fact, that
every point has been carefully thought out and
executed in the light of a true understanding of
its significance.
This particular make of piano is highly
praised by tuners and has a great reputation
for standing well in tune.
T think that it would pay every scale drafts-
man now working in a piano factory and
charged with the duty of supplying the funda-
mental designs of the pianos therein manufac-
tured, to examine very carefully this whole
question of slopes, bearings, etc., and to take
the opinion of the tuners in the factory as to
standing in tune and ease of tuning. Un-
happily, men who work in factories are com-
monly tongue-tied. They are afraid to talk for
fear of being thought trouble-makers. Super-
intendents and executives sometimes encourage
FAUST SCHOOL
OF TUNING
Standard of America
Alumni of 2 0 0 0
Piano Tuning, Pipe and Reed
Organ and Player Piano
YEAR BOOK FREE
27-29 Gainsboro Street
BOSTON, MASS.
Tuners and Repairers
Our new illustrated catalogue of Piano and
Player Hardware Felts and Tools is now
ready. If you haven't received your copy
please let us know.
OTTO R. TREFZ, JR.
2110 Fairmount Ave.
Phila., Pa.
cism from men who spend their lives doing
critical searching work in it. Such men are
tuners and tone regulators. If I had not been
speaking principally of causes of string break-
age, I might have said much about the tone
regulator's point of view, which is equally inter-
esting.
To sum up then: in the cases of wire break-
age which I have had occasion to examine, none
of the wires appear to have been defective. The
cause in each appears to have been con-
cerned with: (1) excessive tension; (2) exces-
sive steepness of bearing; (3) bad agraffe work
or similar defects in construction.
And I would add that when tuners in gen-
eral praise pianos made on principles con-
tradicting the practices above condemned, we
have further evidence of the bad results sure to
flow from them.
Correspondence
is solicited and should be addressed to William
Braid White, 5149 Agatite avenue, Chicago.
Complete Exhibit of Firm, Now Division of
Hammacher, Schlemmer & Co., in Room 773,
Hotel Commodore
The American Piano Supply Co., division of
Hammacher, Schlemmer & Co., New York, will
have an exhibit in Room 773 of the Commodore
Hotel, during the four days of the tuners' con-
vention, starting August 8. Executives of the
company have been devoting a great deal of
time to it in order to show a representative line
of piano hardware and other piano supplies car-
ried by the new consolidation of these two sup-
ply houses. Stocks of both companies have
been combined in the building at 110-112 East
Thirteenth street during the past three months
and the work of classification and tabulation of
the materials has been completed.
W. C. Hess, general manager of sales, has
announced in a letter to the trade that orders
and inquiries may refer to the catalog num-
bers of either company for the present until a
new, complete catalog of the American Piano
Supply Co., division of Hammacher, Schlem-
mer & Co. is prepared.
Spruce Reforestation
Studied by Government Lisbon Mfg. Co. Takes
Over Parker-Young Plant
Report by Department of Agriculture States
Work Comparatively Simple and Relatively
Inexpensive
WASHINGTON, D. C, August 1.—A study of
logging conditions in spruce, fir and pine lands
in Oregon and Washington has been completed
recently by the Forest Service of the Depart-
ment of Agriculture. The conclusions drawn
by executives of the department are that re-
lorestation of these timber lands is a relatively
simple and inexpensive process. The essentials
for growing timber crops in this locality are
embodied in a new bulletin, "Timber Growing
Practice in the Douglas Fir Region," by Thorn-
ton T. Munger, issued as Department of Agri-
culture Bulletin No. 1493-D.
Very favorable yields may be expected in
this highly productive forest region, where saw-
mills already are working in timber as young
as forty and fifty years. The "excellent" land,
for example, will produce more than 1,000 board
feet per acre per year, the "good" land about
900 and the "fair" land about 600.
Copies of the bulletin may be obtained free
from the Forest Service, Department of Agri-
culture, Washington, D. C.
W. M. Shailer in Maine
W. M. Shailer, vice-president and secretary
of Philip W. Oetting & Sons, Inc., New York,
importers of Weickert piano felts, is spend-
ing several weeks in Maine, accompanied by
Mrs. Shailer. They have been accustomed to
spending part of the Summer there for several
years and have taken the same cottage they
had last year. Mr. Shailer will return to his
office about August 20.
Watson-Riecker Chartered
The Watson-Riecker Music Co., Bellingham,
Wash., has been incorporated with a capital of
$9,000. The officers of the company are A. H.
Kinney, of Everett, president; W. B. Watson,
of Bellingham, vice-president and manager, and
H. M. Riecker, also of Bellingham, secretary-
treasurer.
Consult the Universal Want Directory of
The Review. In it advertisements are inserted
free of charge for men who desire positions.
Newly Organized Concern, With H. B. Moulton
as President, Will in Future Handle Parker-
Young Piano Supply Business in Lisbon,
N. H.
BOSTON, MASS., August 1.—The Lisbon Mfg.
Co., a recently organized corporation, to-day
officially acquired the manufacturing plant
formerly owned by the Parker-Young Co., at
Lisbon, N. H., devoted to the manufacture of
sounding boards, backs, bridges, key bottoms,
bar stock and other piano supplies of wood, as
well as veneers and box shooks, and in future
all orders on the books of the Parker-Young
Co. will be handled direct by the new company
through its office at Lisbon.
The officers of the Lisbon Mfg. Co. are H.
B. Moulton, president, he also being president
of the Parker-Young Co.; E. H. Hallet, vice-
president, he being treasurer of the Lisbon
Savings Bank and Trust Co.; Wm. P. Long,
treasurer and general manager, and L. R.
Bressler, secretary and sales manager.
Buys Shenstone Interests
A transaction of considerable importance to
the ivory market was arranged recently, when
Herrburger, Brooks, Ltd., an English house,
purchased the piano key and ivory portions of
the businesses of Shenstone & Co., Ltd., Ley-
ton, England and Bansall & Sons, Ltd., Hom-
erton, England. Included in the purchase are
the capitals and charters of Elephant Ivory
Products, Ltd. (a company registered in Tor-
onto and largely concerned in the ivory por-
tion of the Shenstone concern), and of W.
Olivers, Ltd., piano key makers, recently ac-
quired by the Shenstone company.
Auto Wrecks Music Store
The store and stock of the Kops Piano
House, 508 Central avenue, Great Falls, Mont.,
was damaged to the extent of $4,000 when a
large automobile got out of control of its
driver, crashed through the window of the store
and traveled some sixty feet across the ware-
room floor, smashing pianos, talking machines
and other articles and destroying what was be-
fore it.
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