[pianotech] Stability question

[Porritt, David]

Phil:

Some pianos are simply not as stable as others.  The worst thing you can do is start to blame yourself for the shortcomings of the piano.  The fact that strings are breaking at all shows that it's being used pretty hard.  Hard playing on a light duty piano is sure to disappoint.  

dp

David M. Porritt, RPT
dporritt at smu.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Phil Bondi
Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2010 1:16 PM
To: Newtonville
Subject: [pianotech] Stability question

Hi All.

I've been lurking for quite awhile, except when that Driscoll guy calls 
me out.

My question today involves stability, or lack of it.

The subject is a Wurlitzer C-173. It is being used for a 1.5 hr. 
wall-to-wall dinner theater production. I did alot of work to the piano 
to get it in decent shape for the theater to even consider..regulate, 
got rid of the back check chewers and shaped the tails, re-shaped the 
hammers(rocks), soften the rocks, etc, and added a DC system to it. The 
theater spent a decent chunk of change to get the piano in shape for 
this production.

My question is: is this instrument not really capable of holding a tune 
for very long for such a grinding show? 7 shows in 5 days - broke a 
couple of wire(replaced) - adjusted let-off to closer to 6-7 mil in the 
'breaking wire' section(break area of low tenor and octave 6). I was 
thinking as the show goes on and I tune the piano(2x a week), it will be 
easier to tune and see less unison drift. I'm not seeing it.

When you start to see stuff like this, you start to question your pin 
setting technique..but I've been doing this long know to know that some 
pianos are not capable of this type of grind in a professional atmosphere.

Regardless of the work that was done, is this simply one of those pianos?

-da Rook has returned.