Dead Note

[Jonathan W Edwards]

I had a similar problem on a Kawai RX-3 (not that it has anything to do
with Kawais in general). Some Coke had been spilled in the agraffe and
dried there, effectively deadening the string. You couldn't see the dried
Coke in there, and it doesn't take much to cause this problem. The
strings have to be removed from the agraffes and the agraffes and strings
must be cleaned. Hope this helps,
Jonathan Edwards
Emory University Technician

On Mon, 15 Apr 2002 09:19:22 -0500 Avery Todd <atodd@UH.EDU> writes:
> Hi list,
> 
> Got a question for you. I was tuning a Kawai RX-6 (7') this
> morning and the first time I played Bb2, it sounded almost
> completely dead. It was so obvious that "what the h*** just
> popped out. :-) It has the sort of sound that a hammer makes
> when the felt has come unglued from one side. Much softer and
> deader than the notes around it.
> 
> There's evidence of a spill of something sticky, like coke,
> on the plate in the two middle sections. There's still some
> residue there and the plate bushings are all a grayish color.
> For the rest of the piano, the bushings are the normal wood
> color. There's no evidence anything got into the action except
> for 3-4 keys that have a dried liquid stain on them.
> 
> The hammer is not the problem. I lifted the damper and plucked
> the strings and got the same dead type sound. I even pulled the
> action to look closer at the hammer. There's also no evidence
> of any problem at the bridge. Strangely, there's also no
> evidence of anything on the wire or felt under the strings by
> the tuning pins of that particular note, although there is on
> some others.
> 
> My question is why would only that one note sound that way if
> indeed, the spill is responsible?
> 
> Any other thoughts about why?
> 
> The piano will have very heavy use for the next 3 weeks, until
> juries are over, so so it would be very difficult to find time
> to do much of anything except restring that particular note.
> But with all the recitals going on, I really don't want to even
> do that right now.
> 
> Thanks for any ideas any of you might have.
> 
> Regards,
> Avery
> University of Houston
> 
> P.S. Have you ever noticed that when the words "The IRS" are
> combined, it spells "Theirs"? Just thought I'd throw that in on
> this fateful day!