Sources of "falseness"

[Joe And Penny Goss]

Hi Andrew,
Did you mention rust nodes. Some times the wild string can be cleaned a
little with my
#315 brass string seater, by gently massaging the string until it feels
smooth as you rub the wire.
Joe Goss RPT
Mother Goose Tools
imatunr@srvinet.com
www.mothergoosetools.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew and Rebeca Anderson" <anrebe@sbcglobal.net>
To: <joegarrett@earthlink.net>; "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2005 2:28 PM
Subject: Sources of "falseness"


> I have a Steinway D in my client inventory that I've just finished a
> third tuning service+ on.  It was some fourty cents low when I first
> encountered it.  The client wants this piano to be kept in premium
> condition from now on for his performance venue.
>
> No note was more than three cents (A4) out when I measured it this
> time so it is settling down, somewhat.  I decided to do a little
> maintenance on the piano/string voicing side.  This involved
> tightening loops at the hitch-pins, straightening the path from the
> hitch-pin to the bridge pin (surprising how many clicked over into
> place), seating from front to back on the rear duplex, light seating
> at the back of the bridge, seating via use of a beat-suppressor on
> the front side (no tapping).  The pitch dropped, as expected, from
> three to sixteen cents.  I then did an over-pull
> pitch-correction.  This is followed by seating the wire at the front
> duplex, then lifting in front of the capo and then on the back-side
> of the capo.
>
> After this I fine tuned the instrument.  String noise was greatly
> reduced but still persisted in the mid treble on some strings.  I
> tried holding something heavy against the front and back bridge pins
> and the beating/noise was reduced but not eliminated.  I tried
> driving the bridge pins a little.  There was some improvement.  (BTW,
> why does Steinway have to grind those pins flat?  It makes it hard to
> drive them without risking putting more torque off the driving axis
> stressing the hole.)
>
> So, I want to list all possible culprits for future investigation.
> Previous over aggressive string-seating.  (some areas look like the
> string was crushed down into the bridge)
> Loose bridge pins
> Kink in wire at front bridge pin pulled into speaking length (should
> stretch out between tuning intervals?)
> Poorly shaped or too-soft & cut-up capo d'astro bar
> Scaling interference noise (choice of speaking length, node etc.)
> Sympathetic beats from undamped duplexes elsewhere in the piano
> Mis-shaped hammers
>
> Did I miss anything?  How do you distinguish between the various
> sources?  What are your favorite solutions?
>
> Does anyone have favorite methods to fix crushed bridge capping?  I
> used CA on bridge pins that had cracks on either side of them on a DH
> Baldwin.  I think it kind of worked to fill in some surfaces under
> the strings too.  Did this about a year ago, still going fine, and
going...?
>
> How about loose bridge pins?  Is it preferable to go up a size?  Or
> is it better to inject epoxy and re-insert?  I've used ultra thin CA
> glue on an older DH Baldwin grand that had grain parallel to the
> bridge pin torque and there were cracks on either side.  It worked
> fairly well.  I'm monitoring for long term results.
>
> Kink in the wire?  I stretched everything with a beat suppressor.  I
> can't think of anything but time here.
>
> Capo problems?  Excess paint and filler here can make noise.  Filing
> that off helps.  Poor shape, grooving, a dremel with a long stone
> bit works fairly well.  More ideas, cautions?
>
> Scaling problems?  Hammer shape/position might help.  Pitch-Lock
> clamps may reduce the noise.
>
> Sympathetic beats in the duplexes?  Long "bean-bags" such as Spurlock
> uses for damper work might help to eliminate this while tuning.  I'm
> guessing the Steinway duplexes don't slide around to permit tuning.
>
> Poorly mated hammers?  Check and re-shape.  Joe's hammer shaping tool
> is cool!  I used it on a Wurlitzer studio piano that needed
> help.  It was fast reshaping the hammers and fast to mate them to
> the strings.  Amazing what that did to the sound.
>
> Other ideas, observations, cautions etc. WELCOME ;-)
>
> Andrew Anderson
>
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