Hi Gang,  Why aren't full size uprights made anymore?  The public
probably wouldn't buy them, but the _pianists_ probably would.  What
would be wrong with building brand new 52" or 54" upright players?
Hey, Story & Clark are you listening?  (Rattling your cage here
a bit!)

Every since 1940 it seems, new pianos are getting shorter and shorter.
A short piano has too much loading and has no chance of developing
a powerful tone, it just isn't there.  If any of you have tuned a
spinet, you know exactly what I mean.

Story & Clark seems to be the only manufacturer here in the United
States that understands this.  Their 44" console pianos have a very
unique design.  The plate and bridges are designed with a "fan" pattern,
that permits the longest strings possible in the case.  This really
makes a difference.  Even though the bass hammers have a rather
sharp angle to accommodate this, and it looks odd at first glance, it
doesn't hurt a thing, and the sound is much bigger than you would
expect from such a small vertical.

Now suppose you took this same scale layout and applied it to a 54"
vertical?  How well would it work?  Well, for one, you would have the
same string length as a 6' grand for one!  In the showroom, all those
pretty Yamaha's and Boston's would have to take a back seat and the
Smack grands would sound pale by comparison -- beside this upright!

But would the public buy it?  Well, the serious pianist and music lover
that appreciates music would.  The person who is most likely to view a
piano as a piece of furniture would not.  (That is what Young Changes
are for! (grin)

I would love to try it sometime, though; I would say that the Story
& Clark console action could be outfitted with stickers and used for
this, (and the keyframe and keybed already in production) if the same
scale count was kept.  (As you can tell, I love to design things.)
Sometimes, my designs work flawlessly, like the way I installed the
Pianomation; other times I just ruin parts!

Give me a piano broken down to it's frame and I could string and
assemble it, and build a nice case, but I have no way of casting plates
or making soundboards properly, so I guess I will just have to call
this daydreaming for now.

But it would be nice perhaps, to have a full size piano on the market
with all the quality and charm of the old players with a few improve-
ments we have learned over the past 80 years?

Daydreaming again:

Andy Taylor