Client Care and Spinnet Dampers: HELP!

[Paul McCloud]

I've found this to be true of most Baldwin uprights- the damper pedal
rod almost ALWAYS has to be loose.  I can't count how many times I"ve
adjusted the pedals, to find exactly what you are experiencing- the
dampers leak.  
If you adjusted the lost motion after installing the action, maybe that
caused the problem.  What era did this Baldwin come from?  Does it have
the wooden rail over capstans, or is it the fork-in-the-end-of-the-key
type?  The fork-type action may cause problems if the rubber adjusters
have become brittle.  
Good luck
            Paul Mccloud
            San Diego
-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On
Behalf Of Geoffrey Arnold
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 3:39 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Client Care and Spinnet Dampers: HELP!
 

Hi All,

Well it's deja vu for me. I thought I'd learned my lesson the last time
this happened. I get a call for a tuning and "pedal repair". When I
arrive the damper pedal rod is engaged but the pedal regulated with so
much play as never to reach damper lift. Easy fix, regulate pedal,
achieve damper lift. I then suddenly notice copious bleedthrough. I
point out the "echo" to the customer and say the dampers are old and
misaligned, and another technician must have sacrificed pedal play for
quieting the bleedthrough. I would leave it with pedal play, but if the
"echo" bothered her I would come back free of charge and try to minimize
it.

She does call, and I do return. This time I back the pedal all the way
to where it was when I first met the piano. At this point I have not
touched a single damper head, or damper wire. The damper lift rod is
miles from any damper lever, so all dampers are seated.And still the
massive echo. I neglected to play the piano before regulating the pedal
on my very first visit, so I don't recall if it had the bleedthrough
then. But intellectually I know, tuning the piano as I did, and pedal
regulation could not have caused this pervasive damper bleeding. I try
to delicately approach the issue, essentially inquiring "are you sure
this echo wasn't there before"... "no, I DEFINITELY would have noticed
it, I can't even play it" and the implied "what did you do to my
piano!".... 
The one previous time I reached this kind of exchange I stubbornly stuck
to my intellectual conclusion that anything I could have done during
tuning would not have affected the dampers this much, and if the client
wants to remedy the ailing dampers I would be happy to help but they'll
have to pay for it. Now I am hopefully a little wiser, and would like to
keep my customers so I said "don't worry, this is my problem not yours,
I'm not done here until the problem is fixed..."

Three hours later (of second visit to house), every damper is seated.
When I push each string, the damper follows, showing me that it is
bearing against the string, and there is sufficient tension if the
damper head follows. I strengthened each damper spring in the bass and
low tenor for good measure, requiring that I remove the spinnet action,
which is so much fun. I even tried needling a few offensive dampers.
This is a Baldwin Spinnet from the 60s. The dampers are a little
compacted, but nothing spilled on them, and not too hard or ratty. The
real killer is that with a slow chromatic check, no single note rings
noticeably (play a note, press hand against string, no change in echo).
Laying a forearm across all the strings in tenor does not change the
echo. Nor a forearm across bass, unless you really push, and then the
echo does die. This for me is to assess if it is indeed string noise, or
soundboard/backscale noise, but its so loud it must be string noise. If
I play a forte f-major in the tenor, and arm mute it, the echo sings
loud. If I play same chord and arm mute the bass, lower than the notes I
played, it does significantly dampen the echo. This is why I focused
primarily on bass dampers. One or two of which I found mildly offensive,
but all at least dampen adequately.

I would like advice on good upright damping. But also on this customer
quandary, when you reach a juncture where you as the technician feel
certain the piano has a chronic ailment that predated your ever meeting
it, and the client feeling you caused categorical damper failure just by
tuning. Of course now, I have removed the action, and replaced it, and
bent many damper wires, so now my actions really could have "caused" or
at least worsened the problem (although I did so methodically and with
the intention of improving the symptoms) I can no longer say, I never
touched the dampers, not my fault. How much free time to I give here,
for a happy customer? How does one establish professional expertise and
trust, without saying "its not my fault, so not my problem"?


Thank you tuner support group!

Greg Arnold
www.welltemperedtuning.com
 
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