This looks genius! Really wished my upright were like this. Is there anything negative to it by constructing it this way? I just wonder why not everyone's doing it.

I recently tuned a BLÜTHNER from 1902 with an old-type mechanism. It was very well maintained and little used. Despite everything, it was a beautiful "machine", I looked at it with delight. For several days I thought about what I saw then. Unique. Despite the passage of 120 years, these shock absorbers of the old system have retained 80% of their efficiency.

In my experience pianos and much like loudspeakers ; the more massive they are the better the sound. The Bluthner uprights from this period are in my view and experience the best sounding uprights ever made. I have owned two, and the one I kept will remain my all time favourite playing upright. It has some qualities that exceed the capabilities of the grand piano, it remains light on touch and has a tenor and bass that can raise the dead. It is so easy to service, but oh so difficult to move!! Great video from Roberts Pianos. Thanks for making such info more widely available.

Oh yes! I absolutely agree this would be so much easier to regulate and even replace dampers!

I saw that system in a Pleyel piano made in the 1900. Thank you for your videos!

I wish every manufacturer would build actions like this. It totally makes sense from a maintenance/ rebuild perspective. It would make the life of a technician so much easier...... From a production standpoint I think (especially with modern machine tools) it could be done with little additional cost. In a grand you already have a separate damper action (i.e. the 'back action'). Why not do that in a vertical piano?

Thanks, I had no idea that Pleyels also made this type of action. It would be great to have a photo or video of one. Marcus

Every of your movies I could see is very professional. Good job! And I agree with you - that is the best upright action ever made. It makes it easier to regulate every part in the upright piano.

Yes somebody still makes this type of action. The company is Toyo Piano company. I had the opportunity to service one last year. But they only make it on their Apollo special models

Hello. You have described this system superbly. I have never encountered a Bluthner upright, but wish I had. After all, damper behaviour is crucial to the touch experience of the pianist. This system is so superior for access, it should be on every good piano. The only negative I can see is that the reduced thickness of the hammer rail assembly might also reduce its stability, especially with heavy playing.

It would be interesting if the piano action shifted like a grand piano… (una corda)… which I understand has been done by our ancestors… The effort was not worth continuing because the upright action is so limited in the amount of control which is traditionally available to musicians. The Fandrich vertical action is about 250% better and seriously competes with a good grand piano action. The combination of the two technologies would be really great. I am currently building Fandrich vertical actions and I dream of this possibility! Thank you for the video showing this damper system . I was aware of the Pleyel variation.

Brilliant design, but I'd have to argue that Italy be the easiest action to service, but fandrich verticle actions are the best to play. They have constant controll of hammers just like a grand allowing repeated notes by just raising keys are hairs breadth. Dynamics are made easier by and more expressive due to 0 lag in the keys you depress one the tiniest amount and the hammer moves instantly so that you never end up with keys that have different amounts of free play before hammers move. I have a fandrich upright, and its action feels like a fine grand. With the same controll. It's a Klima piano with a fandrich action manufactured by Renner in germany with soundboard adjustments by Daryl fandrich. Admittedly tho the fandrich/klima model, sounds excellent but bluthners sound better.

This looks so amazing, I wish this was the standard of actions for uprights!

Very nice.

This is a great design, very much thinking about reconditioning in future years, the damper pedal rod system also very convenient for tuner/technicians. Even down to the action resting inside the cabinet, that was lovingly made. Thank you for the video!

I did see some damper adjusting screws on that modern piano!

Some Pleyel uprights have this splitted type of action to. The tolerance between the halves is very tight, so both parts must be more stiff then a normal coupled design. Done right, it is superior indeed, and a lot more piano's would be better regulated right today. Like all things from that time, properly serviced they keep going forever. Modern technology has less longevity but tolerates less service.

Thanks for that - good video. Only minor annoyance which immediately springs to mind would be the requirement to remove each damper to replace a broken string - easy enough if the flange screws don't cross-thread on replacement, I suppose

Really perfect. I can see what you clearly mean to say. Regards from Antonio Goa India. Thank you for this video

I'm not a piano technician but looking at these two example cases, it looks like modern cars are also designed without any repairability in mind. The same seems to apply to pianos here. What's your estimate about initially building the piano? Which action is easier to manufacture? There must be some reason to not build every piano like Bluthner action and the reason is not any patents in this case. Even considering the inital manufacturing process, they need to tune the piano somehow and it seems pretty obvious that Bluthner action allow much better tuning for all the moving parts. I also hope that modern piano manufacturers have heard about Torx screw heads.

If I may ask, why don't the lot of top notes have dampers? Is this the case for all upright pianos? And what about grand pianos, are they similar in this respect?

I don't know about you, but I hate combi screws like those in the Feurich - a good quality slotted is more than adequate in piano actions, I think

Do you think this might be a hang over from those Bluthner uprights that had a proper una corda (shifting keyboard) mechanism?

Eu tenho um igual a esse.

I have my own (completely unrelated) ‘Why don’t they?’ type question about upright pianos. Why don’t they make the soundboard a similar shape to the soundboard in a grand? Why is it rectangular rather than having a curved edge? The superior sound in the mid to treble region of a grand is generally attributed to the curved shape of the soundboard, the different parts of it resonating sympathetically with strings at different pitches. The more percussive sound of an upright is attributed to the rectangular soundboard that has fewer natural pitches of vibration. So why not build an upright with a soundboard following the natural harp shape? There would be some loss of power, but would that matter much? After all, people generally don’t open their piano lid to get the maximum volume from their piano.

Does this action have lost motion compensation for the soft pedal? Do you ever get to see Wessel Nickel and Gross upright actions from around this period, or is that more of an American thing? I have one in a Chase Brothers upright from 1914, and while nowhere near as easy to work on, and having the dampers being part of the main rack, it's not really comparable to the Bluthner action in that regard. But man can it play pianissimo with an almost literal feather touch. And it's quite superbly crafted. In fact, I think I'll do a video on it later this afternoon so check my channel in a day or so if you're curious to see it.

A fine piano remains fine and modern mass market piano manufacture doesn't have the technology, besides a piano like that needs fine regular maintenance

surely the bechstein concert 8 is the best?

The GNU gpl upright piano