Seiler bleed through

[Barbara Richmond]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Nossaman" <rnossaman@cox.net>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Friday, December 02, 2005 5:28 PM
Subject: Re: Seiler bleed through


>> Between the 2nd & 3rd service calls (scheduled every three months) the
>> bleed through returned--in the exact same spot.  I did everything I know
>> (except removing the strings and having a look at the v-bar), and in
>> spite of a fairly mellow voice (for these hammers) I still ended up
>> weaving cloth into the front duplex.  Is this a case of a defective
>> v-bar?  Does that happen?  If so, can something be done about it?
>
> It's more likely a case of defective design. It's possible to get lucky
> with bar shaping and hammer voicing, but the bottom line is that the front
> duplex is too long and the counter bearing angle too shallow. It's doing
> what it was designed to do - make noise. Unfortunately, it just happens to
> actually be in tune and is loud. The easiest dodge is a drop of glue on
> the string in the duplex. This adds mass and de-tunes it so it can still
> make noise, but it won't be at the annoying coincident partial pitch it's
> at now, and won't be as noticeable. This is just the price of the tuned
> front duplex system. I haven't yet detected any benefit.

Well, I guess I'll try reshaping it.  Sure hope it works....  (I do have an
e-mail to the restringing tech asking him if he remembers anything about
it).  I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't budget enough time for it, when I
got the call from the customer and said there was a problem, I thought it
was a voicing problem--because so far, voicing had been the issue.

> > BTW, I asked if he had ever had a string breakage problem with any other
>> instruments he had owned and the answer was no.   He reported to me that
>> when he talked to someone at Seiler about the string breakage, they said
>> it was because the tuner was not letting down the string tension first
>> before tuning.  Gosh, I only do that when I suspect a problem piano--have
>> I been tuning the wrong way all these years?
>
> I do it pretty much automatically on every pin with every tuning. Doesn't
> take much, just enough of a bump to detect the pitch change or hear the
> ping.

Well, I guess this isn't the first time something so obvious has gotten past
me.  I guess it's a miracle I haven't left a trail of broken strings...  :-)

> It's a belt and suspenders sort of approach of someone who's discovered
> countless other ways to screw up, and is trying to avoid some of the more
> obvious ones. So these strings are breaking during tuning, rather than
> during play?
>
> Ron N

I broke two early on (I think that bass string flew the first or second time
I tuned the piano!), though I didn't have a problem after that.  Perhaps I
started letting the pitch down first--I can't remember.  Anyway, just
recently the owner said the technician who followed me broke a string each
time he tuned (it could be an exaggeration...or not) and also never seemed
to have enough time for voicing.  No voicing and strings in various stages
of stretching must have sounded really great.

I contacted the rebuilder and asked if he had done any rescaling when he
restrung and he said that he hadn't.  The customer had insisted on Seiler
bass strings.  "Oh boy,"  I responded.  Who knows, maybe Seiler changed
their bass string design.  I wrote to them asking about it, but never heard
from them.

Barbara Richmond


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