out of tune Wurlitzer

[Dennis Benson]

Wimblees wrote:
> 
> I have a problem that I hope some of you can help me with.
> 
> The piano is a 30 year old Wurlitzer console.  It sits on an inside wall, away
> from heat vents and outside doors, no fire place in the room, away from the
> kitchen, the washing machine is in the basement on the other side of the
> house. It gets played about 3 hours a week by "a little old lady", no banging.
> 
> I have been tuning it twice a year for almost 20 years. For the last 3 years,
> however, whenever I tuned it, it was very badly out of tune. I tuned it again
> today, and the middle of the piano was almost 50 cents flat. What is so wierd
> is that there are five notes with double wound strings on the treble bridge.
> These notes were about 25 cetns flat. But the first note with plain strings
> was about 50 cents flat. The rest of the trebel was comparably flat, but it
> was better higher up. Even the top octave was flat. On the other hand, the
> first octave was on pitch, but got flat closer to the trebel break, with the
> last bass string only 10 cents flat.
> 
> The soundboard an bridges and all seem tight, no cracks or seperations. This
> has a soundbaord with the grain running from left to right. I though about a
> cracked plate, but other signs of one are not there, namely action problems,
> or damper problems. I checked for the pin block seperation, and although there
> is a veneer cover on top of the piano, I cannot see any signs of seperation.
> The back posts are all tight, with no seperation any where.
> 
> Any thoughts, ideas, suggestions?
> 
> Happy Holidays
> 
> Willem Blees RPT
> St. Louis.

Willem,
	Sounds like humidity problems. Was the piano moved over a heat 
vent? I had that happen once and it's not pretty.
	Dennis