Tuning & Moving Piano

[Clyde Hollinger]

Terry,

Thanks for your testimony, but some will still not believe until they do their own experiments.  Sometimes I get to a piano and notice that one of the front casters isn't touching the floor at all.  I usually note that in my records, just in case they move the piano and then complain that it went out of tune, "and you were just here a month ago!"

Incidentally, I replaced all four casters and two caster sockets under a Baldwin Hamilton a couple weeks ago.  When I was finished, one caster was obviously holding only a little of the piano's weight.  How does one decide whether to shim a socket or if the floor is just uneven?  I don't know any failsafe method.  I just repositioned the piano a couple times.  Since in most cases the one caster still wasn't carrying much weight, I shimmed it.

Regards,
Clyde

Farrell wrote:

> Tuned a Yamaha P-22 this morning at a school (me and a close circle of 200 "helpful" kids in the cafeteria!). First I did a 25 cent pitch raise and was getting a little frustrated at the piano rocking back and forth with my tuning lever motion. Started the tuning pass by tuning A3 to the Verituner. Tuned it between 0.0 and 0.5 cents sharp. Realized I was not about to tolerate all the rocking during the tuning, so I wedged a tapered felt mute under the front treble caster. That steadied things. Went back to A3 and was quite surprised. A3 was 3 cents flat. I just had to check this out further. Removed the felt wedge from under the caster and rocked the piano back and forth gently and the piano was back up to pitch! Put the wedge back and sure enough, it was flat again.
>
> I realize this has been addressed many times on this list, but I had never observed it. I also figured any pitch change related to the way the piano was supported on the bottom would most likely be a slow-occurring phenomenon. I will definitely give piano movement more importance in future piano moving situations.