frequent tuning - floating pitch? was tuning

[Cy Shuster]

We have a lot of experience here at the North Bennet Street School with 
pianos that are tuned daily!  It's really a torture test for tuning pins, 
pinblock, and action.  Grands have what looks like grey iron filings at the 
base of tuning pins, from pieces having come off them (as well as red dust 
bunnies on the soundboards from new temperament strips being inserted over 
and over!).

It's really a lot of wear, compared to playing (but perhaps more evenly 
distributed).  Every single key is played multiple times, with force. 
Action centers get loose; we can't repin everything, or we'd be up to size 
26 center pins in no time.  Action rails get worn out from hammers and 
wippens being removed and replaced.  Rep springs and backcheck wire get 
tortured, and of course key height rises inevitably until you can't see 
balance pins in the keybuttons any more... :-)  I don't know how often 
restringing is necessary (they don't let us touch wound strings for a couple 
of months :-), but I know it's done a lot, along with new hammers.

The school could actually charge manufacturers to torture-test their new 
action designs.  Kawai?  Stuart?  Anyone?  We're non-profit, you know...

--Cy Shuster--
N. Bennet St. School
www.nbss.org
Class of '06
(I don't speak officially for the school; I'm just a student)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "timothy ehlen" <tehlen@uiuc.edu>
To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 12:32 PM
Subject: RE: frequent tuning - floating pitch? was tuning


> About my suggestion of pinblock wear, this was the only
> possible problem that I could think of with very frequent
> tunings, based on the loosness of some pins on concert
> grands that I've encountered, including my own CD.  I would
> assume that a re-stringing would need to be done earlier on
> these instruments that have regularly been tuned weekly or
> even daily, comparing with the normal grand that gets 2-4
> tunings per year.
>
> Tim