birdcage pitch?

[Dean May]

What he said. Works for me.

 

Dean

Dean May             cell 812.239.3359 

PianoRebuilders.com   812.235.5272 

Terre Haute IN  47802

 

  _____  

From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Farrell
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 4:44 PM
To: Pianotech List
Subject: Re: birdcage pitch?

 

"In general I don´t do such extreme pitch raises up to 440 Hz in field
service."

 

Why not? Piano owners pay good $$ for such a service.

 

"I was not brave enough to tune it on 440 first, so first I tuned it between
1 and 2 half tones flat and went on to 440. I think it took me 6 or 7 passes
that day."

 

Six or seven passes? Sounds like a lot of work. You should be able to do
such a pitch raise in two and a half passes. First pass A440 plus ten cents
in the bass and maybe 20 cents on the long bridge. After that first pass the
bass and tenor might be in the range of 30 to 50 cents flat. The treble will
likely be more flat - so go through the treble a second time and raise it so
that it ends up 20 or 30 cents flat. Then go through the entire scale doing
a normal pitch raise with appropriate overpull. 

 

I do it like that often. Works well.

 

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message ----- 

 

It´s not so seldom that I see pianos a minor third flat. Usualy the reason
is that they were not tuned for 40 years. I bought such a piano last year
and tuned it in several passes up to 440 and it turned out to be a very very
nice piano (from 1900 or so) with a really great sound (139 cm high) and 440
Hz worked very well. But I was not brave enough to tune it on 440 first, so
first I tuned it between 1 and 2 half tones flat and went on to 440. I think
it took me 6 or 7 passes that day. That was in November. Last week I sold it
and it was still only 2 cents flat. The reason for beeing so flat: it stood
on a floor heating for 35 years and the seller had it not let tuned since
then. 
 
In general I don´t do such extreme pitch raises up to 440 Hz in field
service. I do it only if the piano is in my ownership. Usualy it´s not a
problem to communicate that problem to the customer: Birdcage, some kind of
rotten and a third flat? Go and buy a decent piano or accept the status quo.
Can´t afford a decent piano? Okay, bad luck and I see the problem, but I am
only the messenger.
 
Concerning the Lindner Irish plastic pianos: don´t even try to service or
tune them. These "pianos" are the most worse case scenarios I encountered in
my life as piano tuner. And I saw a lot of strange things in that business.
 
Gregor

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080321/9812f433/attachment.html