out of tune Wurlitzer

[Travis Gordy]

Dennis: What you describe is entirely normal where I live (Oklahoma), and
is true for any piano to a greater or lesser degree.  If the piano was
tuned during the warm wet season which means fairly high humidity in most
homes, your discription fits perfectly what you will find six months later
in the dry heated house with low outside temperatures. Then when the next
six months comes around the first solid strings in the tenor section will
be 50 cents sharp.  Very typical in school rooms.  Now if you tuned that
same piano once a year on about the same date you would find it
surprisingly well in tune every time.  There are a lot of Wurlitzers in my
area. I have a few that go several years without being tuned then find them
so close to being in tune that I wonder why I was called.  I used the think
that someone else had been tuning them, but finally realized that if the
humidity is the same as when last tuned you will have an easy tuning job,
assuming ,of course, that the piano was old enough at the last tuning that
string stretching was no longer a factor. And BTW, the amount a piano is
played has little to do with going out of tune, and nothing to do with
pitch changes.

Travis Gordy, RPT
----------
> From: Dennis Benson <dennisb@WILLMAR.COM>
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Re: out of tune Wurlitzer
> Date: Wednesday, December 17, 1997 2:13 AM
> 
> 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