The collaborative process of The Piano Rebuilders is a natural engine for moving our work toward superior quality, while simultaneously cycling us back over and over to the old-fashioned values that led us to be interested in working on pianos in the first place.
Shared aspirations and mutual feedback fuel this engine. Our model was the Nineteenth Century Steinways' approach to piano building and we look to their fine instruments as we take them apart to test our solutions. For his keys, Mike is returning from the currently prevalent basswood to the superior qualities of sugar pine. We all employ hot hide glue where appropriate for its great properties of durability and reversibility. Kevin studies the graining, the staining, and the veneer work. Jude analyzes the ribbing and tapering, the grain orientation and crowning. In the Steinway pianos we rebuild, the long term results of good solutions and craftsmanship are there to be seen, admired, and learned from. And we encourage each other in the emulation of the traditional values the Steinways represented, even as we are forced to come up with creative alternatives to meet the limitations and challenges of today's work.
The team coheres because of a common admiration of the best of the old and a mutual ambition to produce the best we can today. The industry-wide professional collaboration engendered by the Piano Technicians Guild encourages such values and we hope that our consortium will contribute to helping them flourish.