"Wild Strings"

[Geoff Sykes]

Mike --

At the risk of being scorned... One of my mentors used to tell me that I was
being obsessive about the fixes I was attempting and the tunings I was
trying to accomplish on pianos that simply would not comply. In his words:
"You can't save them all." It has taken me a long time to both understand
what that means and to integrate it into my goal of satisfying the customers
needs to the best of my ability. The piano allowing.

-- Geoff Sykes
-- Assoc. Los Angeles




-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Mike McCoy
Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 1:32 PM
To: Pianotech
Subject: "Wild Strings"


Hi All,

 I have been meaning to write about this for some time and a piano today 
finally put me over the edge. I don't know if my hearing and/or 
listening skills are improving or if I am having a real bad run of 
pianos with "wild strings", or "false beats" if you prefer that term. I 
hate leaving pianos in that condition but just how much time can you 
spend trying to resolve these beats and still make the next appointment 
and be profitable?

 Today's issue was a couple year old Schirmer & Sons upright, very nice 
looking piano, decent Detoa action, agraffes bottom to top, decent tone, 
GREAT feel to the block, but, EVERY single string had it's own beats. I 
had no choice but to pull the action and try to resolve this. Seated all 
strings, but the majority seemed to be well seated, no loose bridge 
pins, nothing obvious. Pushing on bridge pins with a screwdriver had no 
effect. Massaged the worst offenders but really, nothing worked well. At 
this point I'm assuming poor bridge notching ( I can't see as well as I 
used to). Anyway, finally had to tune the damn thing and move on but I 
wasn't happy. This one is probably a good candidate for Pitchlok.

 Do you folks tend to tune these "wild" pianos as best you can and move 
forward or do you spend some time?

Thanks! Happy Thanksgiving!

Mike McCoy