It’s not surprising that Paul Giltinan appreciates good engineering.  A supervisor in the Advanced Chassis Engineering Department at Ford Motor Company, Paul has been involved in the design and development of such award-winning cars as the Ford Taurus, the Thunderbird, and the Limited Edition Mustang Cobra.

Recently, when Paul’s wife, Martha, a pianist, decided to buy a new grand piano, he volunteered to help her shop.  “We’d go to piano dealerships, and Martha would play all of the large grands in the showroom,” recalled Paul.  “If she liked the way a particular piano sounded, I would ask the salesperson if I could ‘look under the hood,’ so to speak, and evaluate the instrument from an engineering standpoint.”

Paul and Martha’s search led them to Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and Colorado.  When Martha approved of a piano’s sound, Paul would proceed to look at the instrument from every angle, taking copious notes on its construction, as well as its strings, actions, hammers and bridge.

The couple spent five months studying “every piano under the sun.”  When their evaluation was completed, only one make of piano was left on their list – Petrof.

“We purchased a Petrof 7’9” grand,” said Paul.  “Structurally, it really stood out from the pack.  It retained all of the excellent engineering features of the 9’ Petrof.  One of the things that really impressed me was the distance Petrof maintains between the strings and the rim of the piano.  This distance was greater than the distance I saw in other pianos, and it made the Petrof soundboard more flexible.”

Paul was so enthused about the new piano, that he took sketches of a Petrof plate and the plates of other grands to Ford Motor Company’s engineering headquarters, where he ran computerized stress analysis for the benefit of young engineers.

The process of building a fine piano shares many things in common with the development of a quality automobile, despite one basic difference, according to Paul.  “Our goal in engineering a car is to eliminate all rattles and vibrations, as opposed to the piano-maker’s goal, which is to create vibration and sustain,” he explained.  “However, even though our goals are somewhat opposite, the automotive and piano designer must both pay careful attention to engineering detail.”

Based on their experience with the 7’9” Petrof, Paul and Martha say they are thinking of taking their 7’9” Petrof to their Colorado vacation home, and replacing it with a new 9’3” Petrof.