Kawai "beast" tamed

[John M. Formsma]

List,

A few weeks ago I posted about a Kawai 902-F vertical that had a lot of
falseness in the treble. There was so much that it was truly difficult to
tune. Well, the problem is solved, thanks to Don Mannino's suggestion of
seating the strings to the bridge. Actually, I have not returned to the
902-F, but yesterday had a UST-8C exhibiting similar symptoms. After strip
muting the piano, I played a few upper treble notes, noticing the 4-5 beats
per second in individual strings. At first, I seated the strings using the
False Beat Elimator tool, which worked well. After verifying that the
strings needed seating, removed the action and seated the remainder of
strings using a small hammer and a hammer shank, as done on a grand. Presto!
It sounds simply marvelous now. Thanks, Don.

However, this has raised questions in my mind. Is it common to seat strings
in vertical pianos outside of the manufacturing facility--i.e., other than
once? I knew that false beats could be caused by bad seating in verts just
as in grands, but assumed that seating only had to be done once since the
strings were being struck towards the bridge in the vert instead of away as
in the grand. (So much for assuming.) If the strings come slightly off the
bridge in a vertical, how does this happen?

Wondering....

John Formsma
Blue Mountain, MS