List (& especially any of you major rebuilders out there), Do any of you have any direct experience with an SD-6 #118127 (1952 I was told)? My atlas is at the university. Today, I went to look at one for sale at a store at a good price. For several years, we've been needing one to put into our large orchestra/band rehearsal hall to avoid having to move one into there from our major performance hall for rehearsals of big concertos. It's been refinished and had new hammers (Renner Blues, I think) installed on the old shanks. Graphited knuckles, etc. Anyway, I'm not worried about all that. That, I can handle. My question is, there is a tone problem in the middle agraffe section. (It's so hard to describe sounds in an e-mail.) The dealer kept saying he thought it was primarily a hammer fitting/string leveling problem. Yes, there is some of that that needs to be done. But I believe it's a problem in the agraffes themselves. This isn't a hammer fitting type of sound. It's a distorted/zinging kind of sound. Like a termination problem or something not seated well. There are some agraffes that are not parallel to the strings and I first thought that was the problem. But there are also some with that same sound where the agraffes are lined up correctly. I'm assuming it probably came that way from the factory. And it's only in that one section. I didn't have my tools with me because I didn't expect anything like that to come up, so I couldn't even experiment a little. You don't really notice it all that much when just normally playing it. Just when playing each note individually. Especially with a little power. The piano has never been restrung. Even still has the aluminum wrapped type upper bass strings. But it sounds great. A BIG bass sound! Decent sustain. The only real problem is in that one area. Have any of you run across this? Can the agraffes be straightened a little without removing the strings? My semi-educated guess is that that section is going to have to be restrung with new agraffes. Or at least, "redone" agraffes. They did buff the tops of them, though. :-) This is pre-accujust hitch pins and from the first treble break down, has one single-tie string on each unison. The tech at the store said they could correct the problem, which I would prefer to have done before we buy it but I was wondering if any of you had any ideas? The dealer said he'd pay me to do the regulation & voicing. Which it needs. Am I on the right track about the agraffes? Thanks. Avery Todd University of Houston
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