[pianotech] Helping out a GH-1

Allan Gilreath, RPT allangilreath at bellsouth.net
Mon Sep 27 16:15:50 MDT 2010


   Good evening Barbara,

In the past, changing the last 4 notes to wound bichords helped 
immensely. I also rescaled the entire instrument so that helped out 
across the scale even more. We changed out the tri-chord agraffes to 
bichord agraffes (Pianotek metric thread agraffes), added two hitch pins 
(there's a nice little procedure for that) and filled the "extra" tuning 
pin holes with epoxy leveled with the top of the plate and painted to 
match the plate. Of course the damper split wedges were traded out for 
bichord wedges.

This will affect tone but the tuning stability issues are a different 
story. I've been taking lots of measurements with dataloggers to see 
what happens with temperature and humidity over time so I've had my eyes 
opened even more than I ever realized I would.

However, that's all part of another class that I love to teach...

Allan
Allan Gilreath, RPT
Registered Piano Technician

President - Allan Gilreath & Associates, Inc.
website - www.allangilreath.com <http://www.allangilreath.com>
email - allan at allangilreath.com <mailto:allan at allangilreath.com>
phone - 706 602-7667


On 9/27/2010 5:51 PM, Barbara Richmond wrote:
> Thanks, Ryan, this is very helpful.  I've been on the phone to a 
> string maker, too.  Duh, it hadn't occurred to me that I would need to 
> measure the whole string scale, because I haven't done this before.  
> I'm glad to know this <before> I write the estimate.  :-)
>
> Hmm, I wonder how heavy that brass weight was...
>
> Less bad is what we're after.  Actually, I think it's the tuning 
> instability that bugs my customer most.  A DC system is being 
> considered, too.
>
> Thanks again.
>
> Barbara Richmond
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ryan Sowers" <tunerryan at gmail.com>
> To: pianotech at ptg.org
> Sent: Monday, September 27, 2010 4:30:42 PM
> Subject: Re: [pianotech] Helping out a GH-1
>
> I had a client with this same issue this past year. I suggested she 
> hire Del Fandrich to take a look at it. Del found that the tension on 
> the last 4 notes really dropped. I think it got as low as around 80 
> pounds of tension.
>
> If I'm remembering correctly we put in 4 bichords. (8 strings total). 
> We used the same agraffs, utilizing the two outside holes. We were 
> able to keep the trichord wedges for the Damper felt. Del did ad at 
> least one hitch pin. Lastly he installed a pretty hefty brass weight 
> to the underside of the bridge.
>
> All in all it worked out pretty well. As Del said all along the goal 
> was to make it "less bad" and it was certainly successful in that 
> regard. The client went from being constantly distracted by the lowest 
> tenor notes to being able to enjoy playing again. So don't give the 
> client too high of an expectation!
>
>
> -- 
> Ryan Sowers, RPT
> Puget Sound Chapter
> Olympia, WA
> www.pianova.net <http://www.pianova.net>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100927/4aa7e521/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 2007-RPT-Logo-Web.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 13287 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100927/4aa7e521/attachment.jpg>


More information about the pianotech mailing list

This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC