Strip muting problem

[Susan Kline]

Dear Jerry,

I've seldom come across a piano where the whole temperament area was
_impossible_ to strip mute, just occasionally difficult.

You might take it as a learning opportunity: Tune each unison as you do the
temperament, as solidly as you can. If any notes are not clean enough to do
the next note in the temperament, or to use for checks, tune them again, harder.

Nothing like a little incentive for stable work. It isn't a bad idea to try
this once in a while even when you can strip mute. Or, if that's too
bracing, try muting only the temperament area (just use a shorter strip) and
do the rest of the piano with wedges or a Papp's mute. 

So, full speed ahead. No challenge without an opportunity (hiss, boo, okay,
sorry.)

Susan
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At 09:16 AM 12/3/97 +0000, Jerry Hunt wrote:
>After doing some repairs on a 1911 Feuhr & Stemmer (the subject of a
>previous post, for which I received some valuable tips - thanks again),
>and a couple of pitch raises, I went a couple of days ago to do the fine
>tuning. I discovered, much to my chagrin, that because the strings are
>very close to the plate (this appears to be by design, and not due to
>some problem that has crept up over the years), it was nearly impossible
>to get a strip to stay between the strings. So I used my thinnest strip,
>poked it in the best I could, and juggled wedge mutes frantically, but
>that made checks, such as series of thirds, etc., quite difficult.
>
>Does anyone have any suggestions as how best to handle this sort of
>problem? My first inclination was to tell the customer that I needed to
>burn in a hammer and "accidentally" set the whole piano on fire, but
>then decided that would be bad customer relations :o) But seriously, any
>help with stripping, or alternative (other than using 50 wedge mutes)
>would be greatly appreciated.
>
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Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com

"Cheer up! Things may be getting worse at a slower rate."
			-- Ashleigh Brilliant