Dear List members: I worked on two pianos this week which had unusal problems that I would like to get some input on. I'm sure that some techinican in this select pool of talent has some good answers, or else interesting wild guesses. First piano: a no-name baby grand that I regulated for a local music teacher. While repinning some loose parts the action I noticed that many of the jacks were out af alignment in the wippen window, often sufficiantly enough to rub against the side. The odd thing was that all the jacks that were out of alignment were to the same side of the window. I seem to recall having noticed this phenomenon in other pianos, but have not come up with a good explanation for it. Any ideas? Second piano: a Yamaha console, model M206B, vintage 1980. Ever since the owner purchased it, she has been complaining to a succession of technicians about a comstant after-ring. She even had a letter from Yamaha assuring her that the problem would be taken care of. After checking all the usual suspects (pedal adjustment, damper follow, spring tension, felt condition) and not finding any irregularities, I began to broaden my search. One thing immediately struck me - there wasn't an inch of stringing braid anywhere on the waste ends of the strings between the bridge and hitchpins. The piano has effectively and 88 note duplex schedule, which was singing away every time a note was struck. I contacted tech support at Yamaha and discussed the situation with the technician, who eventually authorized a warranty repair but did not seem to have ever heard of this model and its peculiar stringing job before. Did Yamaha intentionally string this model without stringing braid, or was this just a stringer's oversight? It's hard to imagine the piano passing through quality control if the braid was meant to be there; on the other hand its also hard to imagine 16 years of piano technicians working on the piano and not noticing the absence of such a standard feature. Thanks for your input, Patrick Poulson, RPT
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