Hi Mitch, The piano was in a fire or near one. Doug Mahard In a message dated 11/13/2000 11:09:30 AM Eastern Standard Time, mitch_ruth@hotmail.com writes: << I had an interesting call on Saturday and I wanted to see if you wanted to have a little fun with it. I went out into the hinterlands (not far for me)to a home with an Everett spinet sized piano. I turned out to be an early 50's model with a bent-key direct blow action (I don't know the proper tech term for it.) It was given to this family by "a friend" so that the little girl there might learn to play. Of course this piano was about 130 cents flat. However I am a hearty soul, who reads his pianotech posts, and will tackle this in stride. Upon inspection I discovered that the upper portion of the strings were ENCASED in rust (not just a little corrosion, rust)and the bass windings were black. The plate was a blackish color and the felt was a little gray. Puzzled I looked behind the kick plate and discovered everything normal for this piano...no rust, windings,plate, and bridges looked good. The lid on the piano was a little scarred but not badly. there was a small place on the side of the piano that was blistered. I determined that the piano would be impossible to tune without a restringing and I could not recommend restringing this instrument. After a discussion with the parents, I found they could not afford a better instrument at this time, so I fixed a few ringing dampers so the piano could at least make noise. While I was doing that, I came up with what I thought was what happened to this piano that created the problem. I thought it might be fun to see if you can guess what happened to it. I don't know for sure but I think I've got it down. Now "It's an Everett" is not an acceptable answer for the purposes of my game. The only prize with be the satisfaction of a job well done and the joy of participating in a string that does not include American politics (By the way I hear we are going to change our national motto to "Just Keep Counting"). Have at it Mitch Ruth DeMossville, KY >>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC