I got called in to tune a newish D for the local community college. I was assured that it had been tuned not too long ago and would just need to be fine tuned for a concert/convocation Sunday. What I discovered was a piano in a storage room with a working DC dehumidifier under it. The room was 72 F, nice, and 67% RH, not so good. I check the whole piano and it ranged from 44 cents flat at A7 to about 9 cents flat at A3 all the way to 18 cents flat at A0. Bump a tuning pin and it goes way flat, OK make that a neglected new piano. First problem was the tuning pins were tight, crick crack, broken A4 unison, tight. Got to practice that knot again. So back to the drawing boards, treat this as if it is rusty. Down than up. Except that it would run up against this solid barrier. Some would crick down too but that didn't break strings. What worked was down than up in one fluid motion. Than some more down to get to the desired over-pull. Not my favorite means of pitch correction. Would aggressive string leveling contribute to the apparently sticky agraffe/capo situation? So, if you look at the sound board and see a board cupping and the lacquer crumbling a bit along a seam is that bad? ;-) The sostenuto was activating unplayed dampers. Damper timing. One damper wasn't clearing the strings, kind of springy on the key, up-stop rail quite low and damper felt quite long below the strings. Several dampers were sticking up, seized action centers which responded quite well to heat. After the discussion about lubricants bringing out the acid in wood on this list I would be interested if heat is better than using Protek? A number of single strings in the high treble were warbling. Tried gentle seating of strings and pins to very little effect. Besides string leveling are there any other tricks besides waiting for the newly up to pitch strings to stretch and lose their bridge pin kinks? Andrew
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC