I am writing all of this off the top of my head, and I know that I am
making a few mistakes, but bear with me -- it has been sixteen years or
more since I saw all of this, and believe it or not, this is the  first
time I have related it to anyone outside my shop.

When you have a plant the size of the Wurlitzer factory in Holly
Springs, you have to keep it working all the time -- idle time for any
piece of machinery means money lost.  At the time I was there in 1982,
Wurlitzer was making piano actions for other piano companies; just
which ones, I do not know.

They made the wooden parts for the grandfather clock kits sold by that
firm in Fairhope, Alabama, and the mill room worked overtime producing
cabinets for Wurlitzer's electronic organ factory which was just down
the road from Holly Springs in Corinth, Mississippi.  They also
produced what they called "knock downs" un-assembled pianos which were
shipped to Mexico City for assembly to be sold in the Mexican market.
There were no "maguiladoras" at that time, although Kimball had already
moved some of its piano action work to Juarez and Reynosa across from
McAllen.

I mentioned the keyboards that Wurlitzer made.  Well they had the
process down to a fine science.  Unlike other factories that I visited,
all of the keyboards that Wurlitzer built had interchangeable keys.
For example all the keys were numbered, and a number 57 key from one
piano would fit in the #57 space of another piano.  When I was there,
they were making a large portion of the keyboards that went into
Baldwin's pianos; they may have been making them all, for that matter.

Aeolian was still doing it the old way.  Each keyboard was sawed out by
hand on large band saws.  Since there were minor differences between
the operators, the keyboards had to be kept together as a unit; that is
why those numbers are stamped on the last two keys of older pianos,
and on the keybeds themselves: they were mated to each other.

Wurlitzer used very large, mechanically controlled German bandsaws that
turned the blade and not the workpiece.  The whole thing was cut by
machine, and the keys matched.  At the Aeolian plant, the wood blank
for the keys was marked in a machine with a GIANT rubber stamp: yep, the
lines where the operators were to cut were stamped on, and the keys
were cut from the backside of the plank, guided by the steady hands of
the operator.

Now about those "3000" series pianos.  Wurlitzer had just about stopped
producing grand pianos when I was there.  Bud Corey had just come back from
Korea where he had helped the Koreans set up a large factory to manufacture
pianos, some for Wurlitzer.  The top of the Wurlitzer vertical line at
that time were the pianos in the 3000 series and they were treated
completely different in the manufacturing stage.

First of all they were manufactured in groups.  The assembly line would
produce only 3000 pianos for a few days, and all of those pianos when
finished, were trucked to a giant cotton compress across town.  In this
building was a room they called simply the 3000 room.  It was
temperature and humidity controlled and the pianos were allowed to sit
in that room until they were checked out completely.  This "checking
out" was done by four women who had forgotten more about pianos than I
have ever learned.

Basically they tore the piano apart and started over, looking for
little things.  They tested the touch, the key dip, looked for broken
or split flanges, but most importantly they "voiced" those pianos, or
regulated the tone, whichever.  I was to spend a day in that room and
reported dutifully early in the morning.

I watched for a while and then the woman in charge, who obviously had
been told I was coming, said, "Honey, I am supposed to teach you how to
voice."  Well that was something that I had never done before.  She
continued, "Now, no offense, but you either have it or you don't -- the
ear that is."

She played several notes on an unregulated piano and asked if I could
hear the difference in sound.  I responded in the affirmative, telling
her just what I heard.  "You got it," was her reply and for the next
eight hours she had me voice pianos, looking over my shoulder.  I have
not forgotten what I learned in that room, and it has stood me in good
stead all these years.

I could write reams more about that five days, the veneer matching
rooms, the veneering department, the piano action department, and I
could describe all those marvelous one of a kind machines that
Wurlitzer designed and crafted in an attempt to stem the tide that was
eventually to leave just a few factories left in the United States.  I
am afraid, however, that a lot of it would bore you, and after all this
whole group is concerned with automatic musical instruments.  I just
thought you would like to hear about how the pianos were made that the
players operated.

The next in this series will be about the P. A. & K. plant of the
Aeolian Corporation and that will be completely relevant as I am going
to tell you how they made those player actions with the plastic glued
on valves.

Ed Gaida

 [ Don't stop, Ed.  Few piano techs have had the learning experiences
 [ that you're telling us of.  MMD serves the _interests_ of the
 [ subscribers, and your stories of techniques and craftsmanship are
 [ very interesting.  Thanks for sharing them.   -- Robbie