[pianotech] HFM encounters of the third kind

[Charles Vetter]

Worked on a spinet for a surgeon once. Had a broken shank that had been 
perfectly repaired using four meticulously tied pieces of wire. It was awesome! 
It was effective. I was humbled.
Chuck





________________________________
From: Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net>
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Sent: Mon, August 15, 2011 7:14:24 PM
Subject: [pianotech] HFM encounters of the third kind


It all started out on one of those "trapped" notes, when an old friend and long 
time customer referred one of her students to me for piano service. While it 
wasn't her fault, it WAS a Henry F Miller spinet. Strike one. When I arrived, 
the piano was sitting about three feet out from the wall, with all the stuff 
that was on top now piled on the bench, which was against the wall next to the 
piano. Strike two, and a foul down the first base line. We muscled it back to 
the wall, I unloaded and retrieved the bench, and got a look inside. Right smack 
in the middle, there was a broken hammer shank. Now here's where it starts to 
get interesting. There are people, and I was one of them once or twice many 
years ago, who can get a hammer assembly out of a spinet through a superhuman 
series of contortions and incantations. This, I can still do, but it's one way 
magic. The problem is getting the bloody thing back in when you can't see what's 
happening, can't tell enough by feel to make up for that, and have a demonically 
possessed jack spring loaded into the very center of any attempts to get around 
it. So I, slow learner that I am, eventually gave up trying and in more recent 
years, just pull the action. JUST pull the action, he says, as if there were 
anything "just" about it. Unhook all the hangers, and pull all the keys out, 
since there isn't clearance with them in. Remove the front board stops and 
brackets from the sides, because the action won't clear them. Remove three 
screws on top, and five at the bottom of the action to separate it from the 
piano. Verbally fend off well meaning but scary offers to help just as I was 
getting the thing past the last obstacle (the damper lifter lever under the bass 
plate strut), and set it down on the dark entry path rug rather than the beige 
carpet. So far so good, or I've overlooked something deadly. With the action 
nominally at my temporary mercy, I pulled the offending hammer assembly.

There it is - strike three. I was rewarded with a vision of a floppy hammer and 
a wad of Scotch Magic Mending tape as big as my thumb randomly and loosely 
packed around the break. I'm here to tell you folks, Magic Mending Tape isn't, 
and doesn't. Cutting the MMT off, I found one of the most wonderfully insane 
things I've ever seen in a piano, which is no small thing, as the competition is 
pretty steep. It was a Band-Aid (Curad, actually, I think), complete with center 
pad. No glue whatsoever. So when the band-aid didn't heal it, and the MMT didn't 
mend it, it was considered beyond further attempts, with all the best shots 
already used up. Oh, I didn't mention, someone at his church gave the piano to 
him. Gee! The break was about a third of the way down the shank, and proved to 
be straight across once I got all the pressure sensitive tool kit scraped off, 
which I thought very weird. But then...

Out to the truck, pull the shank from both parts, grab a new shank, and head 
back inside. Putting the butt back in, I once again verified that, even with the 
thing lying on the floor where I can see it and reach everything, the jack is 
still demonically possessed and spring loaded against successful access and that 
makes all the difference. Eventually, I got the thing in, set the action in the 
piano, and glued in the shank. As that dried, I installed all the screws, stops, 
brackets, and pedal rods, and reconnected the action to the keys. Sigh. Tuning 
time.

Oddly enough, it was pretty close to pitch, on average, but the tuning was all 
over the place. Made me consider again that the tuner possibly WAS responsible 
for the "repair", both displaying similar skill levels. Matters not, it's less 
bad now.

I was about cooked by then, at 82°, put the box back together and submitted a 
considerably bigger bill than I had originally anticipated. I hadn't quoted him 
anything specific on repairs, but he watched some of the gladitorializing from 
the dining room, so he understood the reason for the total.

Back home for lunch. Another morning in paradise.
Ron N
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