Steinway & Sons: 2025 Artist Bench

The Steinway & Sons 2025 Artist Bench was a project I spearheaded as the lead mechanical engineer from manufacturing prototype to volume production. The traditional style of piano bench that Steinway previously provided to customers included a screw-jack style lift system, where a user must manually crank the bench handle repeatedly to adjust bench height. This new bench product features a easy-to-use gas spring lift system that functions like a modern office chair.

My engineering involvement included designing all-new die-cast bench handles, resolving a variety of design and production problems associated with the lift mechanism (gas spring specifications, mechanism interferences, motion chatter, outgoing inspection requirements), delivering full production design drawings and bill of materials, and ground-up development of a cycle test machine that automated testing of 30,000 adjustment cycles to study lift mechanism durability.