[CAUT] Agraffe noise

[Horace Greeley]

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Hi, Robert,

At 09:25 AM 9/13/2004, you wrote:
>Dear List,
>
>I just started at the local college.  There is one grand piano there where 
>many plain wire strings and a few bass have a very loud hiss or 
>sizzle.  If is was a bass string you'd think the copper wrap was loose, 
>but twisting the string didn't help.  It is the worst case of this I've 
>ever seen.
>
>The piano has signs of being worked on.  Beside pieces of felt stuck here 
>and there trying to get rid of the zinging,  there are Pin-Tite stains on 
>the plate and rock hard, overly lacquered hammers.  On other pianos I've 
>had good luck tugging upwards on the string, or cleaning out the hole in 
>the agraffe.  But that hasn't helped in this case.  If I push down firmly 
>on the string on the tuning pin side of the agraffe it stops.  There is 
>felt there so it isn't a vibrating string.  In my research I found a 
>Journal article that mentions that maybe the agraffe itself is loose.
>
>I wanted to run this by you all before I began testing this theory, or 
>perhaps someone knows exactly what the problem actually is.  (And because 
>I have the piano faculty looking over my shoulder I  want to be right the 
>first time!)
>
>Thanks for any insights.

I think the first thing would be to know what make and model of instrument 
you are dealing with.

If, just for example, it happens to be an S&S B, and, further, happens to 
have been built pretty much any time in the 1970's/1980's, the chances are 
that getting rid of the buzzing will probably require restringing and 
reworking/replacing the offending agraffes.  This is because many Bs (and 
some Ds) built during that period had factory installed agraffes which were 
misdrilled (that is, the machining of the holes was out of line, one side 
with the other), so that there were, in effect, two centerlines for the for 
the hole through which the string goes, rather than one.  It's been long 
enough now that you probably could not get any warranty relief.

There is a distinct difference between the sounds produced when an agraffe 
is loose as opposed to when noise is generated by what is described above, 
and an agraffe simply being "loose" in the plate...something I have not 
seen all that often, unless there has been some previous "repair" work done.

So, anyway, some more data, please!

Thanks very much.

Oh, yes...let 'em look.

Best.

Horace

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