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Attended a tech seminar at Tanglewood in the 90s focused on prepping the Baldwin SD10.

The teacher (Baldwin chief tech Andre Svetlichny) pointed at something in a brand new, untouched, just uncrated and assembled 9', made a disgusted face, and said, quote:

"What the dog left behind!!!"

(as in why people take their dogs outside)

What was he referring to?

The enormous dot over the "I" ?

The vertically laminated bridges already splitting?

Hint: involved factory standard SD10 parts, correctly installed, that still didn't meet his standards for a concert instrument (or any new piano, but ESPECIALLY a concert instrument) and required additional work, which made him mad.

You could say that about most of the Baldwin hammers I have seen...

LOL, he grumbled (a little) about those too, but nah.

Accu-just hitch pin adjustment?

That complicated treble termination system at the capo bar? I forget the name of it.

I would have to guess one of two possibilities...

1) What Floyd just mentioned. Those horrible counterbearing mechanisms at the treble.


or

2) The horrible tuning pin layout at the top end of the agraffe section.

Nope. Hammers closest guess so far.

Sorry, nope.

Sorry, nope.

Another hint.

This was something that could be and was fixed on the spot with tools a well equipped tech should have with him. So obviously not an agraffe or bridge level thing.

furry dust balls from sanding the hammer felt?

You must be talking about a tuning lever then.

First time I heard a Baldwin concert grand in an actual recital was with Jorge Bolet in Hannover, Germany back 1987. And the very first note in the very first piece he played this evening was horribly out of tune, the E2 of the Mendelssohn's Rondo Capriccioso introduction:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p5dLb4xZowTldz6F0b3-BX3Wzx_cyK2w/view?usp=sharing

Ever since then I have wondered what happened this night. Either the concert technician in charge had his first job on stage ever - or the piano was a beast to tune that other concert technicians wouldn't have wanted to touch at all, knowing that it would go all over the place within minutes after leaving it tuned.

Still it was a fabulous evening.

Sorry, nope. Hammers still closest guess.

Hint: Literally closest.

And great story, and ew, that first note!

Well, strings are the closest to the hammers, (on one end of swing), so if not string leveling, then the spacing?

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CLOSE, but nope.

Dampers?

YOU GOT IT!

The part anyway.

So, what *about* brand new damper felts on a virgin SD10, shipped from the factory floor, straight to Tanglewood, knowing the head tech for Baldwin would be tearing it apart, would make said chief tech compare said felts to canine feces left on a public sidewalk, in front of a class?

What problems could that *about* cause, how would you fix it, and with what tool(s)?