[CAUT] Advice for achieving stability sooner?

[Fred Sturm]

On Feb 8, 2010, at 6:38 PM, Jeff Tanner wrote:

> I've found that Asian pianos do need this for some reason, and it  
> doesn't always have to be right out of the box. I've used this  
> technique on Asian pianos which have had tuning instability for  
> years, and it settles them down. I don't know if it is the  
> rendering, or if the wire stretches (which is kind of what it feels  
> like), or the coil tightens, or all of the above. But you're right.  
> This works.
>
> But why is it that I don't seem to find that American pianos respond  
> the same way?


	When I had a Baldwin loan program, I found it was definitely true of  
both grands and uprights (you could almost always pound flat by 25  
cents of more, especially high treble, after a string and pin was  
otherwise seemingly stable). I assumed that this pounding was making  
more positive bends at the various bearing points (there was next to  
no friction at the bearing points near the pin). I doubt very much  
that there is a "generic" difference in this respect between Asian and  
American. There are often big differences in what happened between  
initial stringing in the factory and the first tuning we do on them.  
Lots of variables, from how high the initial tuning is overpulled  
(lots of pianos come in 25-50 cents sharp), to how many chippings and  
tunings, to how long a period of time between point X in manufacture  
and delivery, to how long they stay on a dealer's floor and what  
happens there, etc.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu