Not at all, I have little knowledge of Overs. I just wondered at the 'state of the art' comment, when I understood that much or even all of his work has been centred on other people's pianos.
Regarding Overs, where does he source his action?
Ah, well, it's a tinkerers art. My impression is that Ron has a keen interest in making individual components of the piano better. Here is an example:
Piano actions have inherent friction. Theoretically less friction will make a better action. Ron designed an action (his own, I don't know who produces it for him if someone other than himself) that has less inherent friction than the typical Renner.
Go through details in the piano and you will find a little trove of those in the Overs pianos: ribs, string speaking lenghts, relative tensions, cross-over ranges, string termination points, soundboard rib shape. I really like that the guy has no qualms about appreciating a design flaw in a fine piano, like a Bechstein or Steinway, and making a modification to the design that makes the piano be materially different, even if it requires making changes to the plate, hitch pins or other difficult stuff to change (let alone adding some mass here, different hammers there, a srping here, etc.)
In America I know of two shops that have a similar philosophy, on is Del Faindrach and the other is Pianocraft in Maryland near DC (Sam Powell, Keith Kerman and Shaun Tirrel, who love to hod-rod a piano). I bought my piano from Pianocraft, pretty much one of a kind, and love it. I wonder whether one day I will get myself a Bose and go to town with my guys and change in it all the things I don't like about Boses but keep the good bones those pianos have (although, why, you may ask, since I can just get myself a Steingraeber that comes out of the box fantastic).
Topic: Stuart and Sons