I recently serviced a German-made Sangler & Sohne console in which I found to be very frustrating. It was 5 years old and had been serviced regularly but the past tuners (3 of them) had never tuned it to A=440. The client complained about her past tunings and decided to call a fourth tuner - me! It was about a half step low in pitch. The pins were very tight. I thought "I wonder if this piano is supposed to be tuned a half step low or what? Made in Europe with a pea-green plate, who knows." The fact that the bass strings looked smaller than the usual console bass strings also led me to believe the pitch could possibly be lower. But, I took a chance and raised the pitch to A=440. POP! There goes one bass string. Should I continue? I did so after lubricating the contact points on the V-bar. No other strings broke. What was disturbing was that the bass windings were almost touching the V-bar. The bass pins were overlapping the next bass string to the right of it and on some of the pins I couldn't even fit my tuning lever on it due to the underlying string next to it. Some of the pins were only slightly bent. It was not a good day. Anyone have a comment and/or has serviced these pianos and found these type of problems? Jay Mercier Piano Technician / Music Educator Glenwood, MN jaymercier@hotmail.com http://www.minnewaska.com/spectrum.html ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
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