The Making of a Steinway - A Steinway & Sons Factory Tour Narrated by John Steinway

you are about to see those distinctive details of material construction and precision engineering that make a steinway piano whether a grand or a vertical different from any other piano in the world the difference that makes steinway piano so intuitively responsive so incomparable and sound they are chosen by 95 of the world's performing artists i'm john steinway and welcome to a tour of our long island city new york factory and the making of a steinway 85 of the piano is wood we inspect every piece of lumber that arrives at our factory to be certain that only the top grade of each wood used will be built into every steinway piano the lumber is air dried for up to one year and then kiln dried to remove any tendencies for warping and cracking now our basic construction begins with the most basic and dramatic procedure of all bending the rim straight grain hard rock maple is laminated and glued together in flat grain sets flat graining gives a 47 improvement of vibrational characteristics of a cross-grained plywood style sets sideways unique system is to bend both an inner rim and outer rim at the same time this is the method that achieves ultimate strength and durability and the quality of sound distinctive to steinway the sets of maple about 20 feet long are carried to the press and clamped into position the press an invention of cf theodore steinway was patented in 1880 they work around from the center outwards tightening the clamps what results is a homogeneous foundation of unified inner and outer rim capable of standing the tremendous tensions of stringing each rim is removed from the press and stored upright in a conditioning room for several months depending on size a glued and doweled assembly of case cornice and rest plank are glued into the rim the rest plank is made of seven layers of maple laminated and glued so that the grains cross at 45 degree angles this is our patented hexagrip construction it is still ours alone and the gripping power that this hexagrip construction provides gives every steinway piano a tuning stability that is by far the strongest in the industry the next important components of a soundboard and bridge the soundboard is made of slow-grown sitka spruce a tall evergreen from the northwest and alaska we use the highest criteria to select the finest grade available it has wonderfully close grains and the logs are quarter sawn so that the grain runs straight down the length of the board nothing else comes close to the acoustical qualities of this wood to the native properties of the wood we add an exclusive and distinctive feature our famous diaphragmatic taper it is fitted into the piano slightly crowned this allows vibrations to travel freely along the grain to the center moving more air increasing the sound and projecting it the bridge glued to the top of the soundboard is made of vertical laminated maple just like the grand rim the bridge transmits vibrational energy from the strings to the sound board one important component is the iron plate cast from bell quality iron in one piece from our exclusive patterns the sound board with its bridge and the cast iron frame are now assembled inside the piano rim or the belly of the piano by a man called the belly man it is an involved process to get the sound board correctly placed and the bridge height precisely determined so that the pure swedish steel strings we use will have the correct downward pressure or bearing on the bridge all across the scale the next step in making a piano is adding the strings the traditional method of stringing by hand is combined with modern technology the center and upper strings three for each note are stopped off by the duplex at a precise relative length to the main string speaking length and vibrate in harmony this duplex scale patent delivers a richness of sound that is characteristically steinway the action assembly is mounted on a tubular metallic action frame another steinway distinctive patented feature the hammers for the action assembly are cut from a tapered sheet of felt a set of hammers is placed in the press the felt forced into shape for gluing to hammer moldings all steinway hammers are made in the steinway factory after hammers are glued to the hammer shanks the whole action assembly and the keyframe must be carefully put together and fitted into the instrument careful precision is important here because the position of the hammers is vital for their proper striking point on the strings measuring the depth of keys travel is another important phase of the regulating process special gauges are used to measure the proper depth of touch key depth travel is critical one of the main features of the grand action is those important little half round bearings on which the keys balance they're shaped so that the touch point where the key rests on the bearing moves backwards as the key is depressed this allows for fast return to playing position another steinway patent it's called the steinway accelerated action when all adjustments have been made the piano is moved to a soundproof room to meet an 88 rubber-fingered mechanical device to break in the action over the entire scale and now for the voicing the resiliency of each hammer is crucial each is tried note by note and the action removed and the hammer subjected to a sticking with a three-needle device to adjust its resiliency the action is put back and bone tested again this process is repeated until the entire keyboard is even in tone quality in expert hands the steinway piano is brought to tonal perfection actually each piano will have its own tonal flavor with various predominant qualities such as brilliance mellowness warmth roundness of dome and the like i think that now you have a more complete picture of our company the way we build our pianos and why a steinway piano is different from any other piano in the world i'm john steinway thank you for watching you

Channel: Steinway & Sons

Views: 2,954,186

Keywords: steinway factory, piano, steinway piano, factory tour, steinway factory tour, steinway ny factory, steinway & sons, steinway and sons, steinway pianos, piano factory, john steinway, henry steinway, henry e. steinway, piano factories, made in the usa, piano made in usa, made in america, products made in the usa, historic factories, world's finest piano, steinway artist

Id: jAInt7hIZlU

Length: 8min 33sec (513 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 22 2011