I know you old pros have been through this years ago and are now too wise to find yourself here - so this is for the newbies. Old upright. 1918 Starr. Uprightitis Bigtime. (Hey, what can I say - I'll work on just about anything........he had a little old Hammond organ that needed fixin' also........naw!) About a dozen bass string WAY below pitch, rest of piano 60 cents flat. Half of the tenor tuning pins were tapped down so that coils were squished up against plate/tuning pin bushing. I identified all the loose pins I could - about 20 of 'em. Suggested to the guy piano replacement. He said go for it. I shimmed the 20 pins, and another 10 or 15 that I found loose in the course of messing with the first 20. Raised pitch up to A440 in two passes, tuned. Identified another dozen or so loose pins that I ???hope??? will last for a few months - but should be shimmed next time. I even asked the dude half way through if he wanted to pay me for what I had done and cut his losses - didn't bite. Made a good day's pay anyway! What puzzled me was that I went quickly through the pins in the center of the piano and they seemed weak, but good enough for now. After shimming a number of the pins, I noticed that a bunch of tuning pins that had not been identified as being loose, now had the characteristic of jumping about a half step down when trying to just move the pitch down a hair. Could this be related to the fact that the coils were squished up to the plate? Terry Farrell Piano Tuning & Service Tampa, Florida mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com
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