so ya wanna be a pe-anna toonuh?

[PNOTNR@aol.com]

This is actually a follow up to and earlier post of mine regarding a 'do it
yourself 'til you get stuck' piano owner and (I'm rolling my eyes here) his
"disciple".

I got a call a while back from someone who "took out a book on piano
repairing from the library and rebuilt [his] piano".  Seems the tuning part
was a problem though because there were "too many overtones for [the] tuning
equipment".  When I got out there, I found that the problem was more likely
the fact that the instrument was a whole step low, and his little strobe was
having trouble accepting an A that was really a G!

Well, lo and behold, the guy is now sharing his expertise with his friends,
and yesterday I got to see the latest end product.  Based on what I found, I
can pass along these new tech tips!:

1.) The disiple found that there was excessive lost motion, so he adjusted
the capstans. Then he had trouble with jacks hanging up in the pocket worn
into the butt leather, so he shimmed the hammer rail up 3/8" so the jacks
would escape.

2.) He found that the "metal bars in the back" (I figured he meant spoons)
had worn into the felt of the damper levers, so he just removed all the felt.
 Also, the damper felt had "holes in it", so he "sanded them down"  (I found
this effectively removed the dampers from any influence on the sound of the
instrument.  And you know, there is logic to this approach.  People buy
pianos to hear them, right?!  Why put up with this damper nonsense that only
silences the very instrument that we wanted to hear in the first place!)

3.) Escapement was set to occur at about 3/4".  Combined with the
reintroduced lost motion, we have an instrument that may be played at any
hour of the day with little fear of disturbing neighbors.  (Even though the
notes that do sound, ring on and on!  How much do you suppose Yamaha wasted
on that quiet keys R&D?!)  It was tough to
get a good test blow, though.

4.) Many tuning pins in the bass were not tight enough to hold at pitch, so
by reducing tension on those notes to the point that the string merely acts
to hold the damper against the string- even THESE dampers- you don't have to
put up with the dissonance.  This
could be adjusted to mimic the octave coupler in a reed organ.

(5.) I can see that this post is starting to get a bit long, so I'll not
discuss the center pinning.)

In all fairness to this guy, I should point out that the instrument (a Cable
& Sons upright) had bridge pins literally falling out, the soundboard was
split under the bridges and the boards were offset enough to pass a phone
book through, the hammers were those reverse 'D' shaped ones (who makes
those, anyway?), and the nose bolt had punched out through the back of the
post (or 4 X 4, as it was called)- in short, this guy was not going to get
anywhere with THIS piano.  But that's what I'm getting at.   We had a recent
discussion here about whether it is fair to laugh at some of the wacky things
customers do or say.  One point made was that these are not unintelligent
people.  Very true.  This customer is an auto repairman, and the guy who
'helped' him is an electronics repairman who repairs pagers.  I know that I
can't do what they do, and that is the real point I am making here.  I KNOW
that I have no business repairing my own car or computer, so why do these
people make the assumption that they can figure out how to fix their pianos.
 I'm content to let my mechanic tell me when it is time to have the air in my
tires replaced.

Gordon R. Large, RPT
Mt. Vernon, ME