In MMD 980926, Bruce Clark refers to a unusual piano action he recalled
from a Lafargue piano.

I believe he is talking about the Staib-Abendschein Mastertouch action. I
have encountered a few (very few) of these through the eons, always in
players. Since it's a very shallow action (no backchecks, and with slightly
different geometry) I would think it was made to enable the installation of
players without the necessity of manufacturing a deep case.

As I recall, the regulation of the action was pretty straightforward and
made a great deal of sense. It was possible to get the let-off very close
to the string to enable ppp playing without running into a lot of other
problems.

I wonder there weren't more of them made.

I have attached a .jpg of an old advertisement for the action with an
excellent picture that shows how it worked if you want to put it on the
website. If you don't, I'll be happy to send the picture (as an e-mail
attachment) to anyone who e-mails me for it.

Dean Randall

 [ I have placed the attached image on the MMD Picuture page:
 [
 [     http://mmd.foxtail.com/Pictures