Dear List, Thursday evening I finished tuning for a school music festival. The last piano I tuned was Baldwin spinet #987421 (the one with all four hammer rest rail bushings missing). I played the arpeggios I always do. I played a piece before I left. The piano worked as well as a Baldwin spinet can. Why they used this piano at one of the adjudication sites I can't explain, since they did have another much better choice. I received word Friday that they couldn't use the piano. They brought in a keyboard instead. Someone opened the piano and saw hammers forward, and the sound would not stop ringing. So Saturday I stopped back after the solos and small ensembles were done. Many of the hammers were forward as though the jacks were hung up. The sharps were less severe than the others. The jacks did seem to be hung up, so I tapped them back into place (as I have often had to do when placing the action back into an old upright). Fine, except that as soon as those keys were played again, they returned to this position in which the hammer did not return completely to the hammer rest rail and the dampers did not damp. If this had been the case Thursday evening I would have stayed there for hours trying to solve the problem. But it didn't happen then. Why on Friday? This piano structurally has not been good for years. One can rock the right end of the keybed. But that doesn't seem to be the cause. Adjusting the drop wires does not seem to make a difference. Does anyone have any helpful ideas? I've never seen anything like it in twenty-one years. But then it is a spinet. Any suggestions will be helpful. In the meantime I'll probably be lying awake nights trying to solve it! Arlie Arlie D. Rauch Glendive, MT http://members.Tripod.com/~Turbooster
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