Overnight disaster

[Jon Page]

Is this one of the pianos with the curved bridle wire instead of
looped ?  The bridle straps may have slipped down the wires
causing this hang-up.

First impressions,

Jon Page
Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass. (jpage@capecod.net)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At 04:30 PM 4/18/98 -0600, you wrote:
>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
>
>
>