Student Question - Read only if in magnanamous mood.

[ATodd@UH.EDU]

John

   Let me reassure you that the vast majority of technicians do not mind
answering what may seem to you as "stupid" questions. Most of us still
remember some of the agony we went through when we were first starting. As
someone once said "the only dumb question is an unasked question."
   You'll probably get several responses, so at the risk of needing "flame-
proof" pants myself, let me make a few comments.
   If the grooves are deep enough to be very noticeable. I say yes. File
them. At least it's your own piano and it's much safer to learn on yours
rather than a customer's piano. If the piano is not being restrung, there is
normally not much need to space the strings. Then you run the risk of having
ringing dampers. They will be grooved, also, to the strings.
   If you leave any appreciable groove in the hammer you will need to mate
the hammers to the grooves. If not, every time the hammer hits the string
it will do a little sideways twist, trying to mate to those grooves. So go
ahead and file them, at least, until the grooves are not really visible. If
the hammers were BADLY grooved, you might have to leave some grooves in the
extreme treble, just because of the amount of felt that is on the hammer to
start with.
   I have seen hammers that were worn all the way through the felt to the
wood core. With that, there's not much you can do anyway, except try to get
the owner to replace the hammers.
   But let me encourage you to do most of your learning, especially of things
that are not reversable, like hammer filing, on your own piano or some other
older instrument. At least, that way, you won't risk making a mistake that
you will end up having to pay another technician to come in and correct.
   The first tuning I ever did, for money, was in a friends (thankfully) home
and, of course, a string broke. I'm was still concentrating on learning to
tune and didn't even have any piano wire yet, let alone the tools needed to
replace the wire. I called every tuner in the area to try to get the string
replaced. I finally did but it cost me just about all of my tuning fee, plus
I got a lecture from one tuner about going out and doing work before I was
prepared to take care of problems like that. Enough said.
   Hope this was of some help and don't hesitate to ask your fellow PTG
members for help. Most of them will be more than willing to help you.
   Good luck and good learning.

Avery Todd
University of Houston
atodd@uh.edu