Tuning Gone Bad: The Outcome

[Richard Brekne]

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

Sir.
>
>Turns out, the piano was moved the day before I tuned it (3 weeks ago)
>from the old church building to the new church building. The new church
>has three major AC units. Only one was going today, and it was nice an
>cool in there (90 outside). I did not have a hygrometer to measure in the
>old and new church, but I'm guessing that the old church is very high
>humidity, and the new church is very low humidity. That may be the primary
>cause of the plain wire sections of the piano to drop 20 cents.

Sounds like you basically have identified the problem. BUT....

>
>But the piano was wierd. Bad wierd. I did a normal pitch raise, but the
>center ended up 5 to 8 cents flat. I did a tuning pass, with pulling the
>middle part up an extra cent or so to make all work out nice. The top half
>of the middle section ended up 4 to 5 cents sharp. So I retuned that part
>back down to pitch. Then the lower half of the middle section ended up 8
>cents sharp! What's going on here!?!?!

Hmmm..Could be just really tempermental after a severe climate change. Middle aged K&C's ..... perhaps early menopause ?? :) In anycase.... if you cant find anything visual wrong...plate bolts, cracks, and the rest.. then you arent going to find out much unless you tear the thing apart.

Tune it again in a couple weeks and see how it behaves then. What condition was the soundboard in ? Might be interesting to have a before and after aclimatizing picture.


>
>Then I decided two things: 1) That thar' pie-anner's got some problems;
>and 2) I had better go the the store and get a bottle of wine and some
>chicken to grill. So I did. Problem solved.
>

Now THATS what I call highly professional troubleshooting. Good form indeed !

>Sumthin's screwy in St. Loui! I suppose I'll find out more about it next
>time they call. Oh well, interesting experience. I had never seen a piano
>change like that because of a presumed humidity change. Or maybe the plate
>is made of rubber.
>
>Well, that's all I know.
>
>Back to leading keys.
>
>Terry Farrell


Richard Brekne
RPT NPTF
Griegakadamiet UiB