Breaking the one hour barrier

[Terry Neely]

It may have been posted before, but I have found that my tuning time has
decreased greatly since I have started limiting myself to only one blow per
string when doing pitch raises. I use RCT for these procedures, and starting from
wire one in the bass allow myself only the sustain time of one blow to move and
set the string. Yes, some end up closer to the target than others, but this is
pitch raising not fine tuning. The more I do, the faster and more accurate I
become. The payoff is the bleed over into faster fine tunings, as I am quicker at
getting and setting the pin.
    May all of you fine folks have a happy holiday and a very prosperous new year

                    Terry Neely, RTP chapter

Tvak@AOL.COM wrote:

> I'm going to miss all this business next month.  I'm having so much fun.  And
> due to tuning so many pianos in the past month and a half (about 10 a week!)
> my speed has improved: I did several one hour tunings this month.  A good
> piano with no pitch raise can take me one hour or less.  Unfortunately, those
> Lesters and Gulbransens still take me an hour and a half, and my client list
> is packed with those little gems.  I guess I shouldn't say complain about
> Lester pianos---I did two complete elbow replacements this month, both on
> Lester pianos, which paid for quite a few Christmas presents!
>     Curiously, both Lesters had Dampp-Chaser dehumidifier bars installed, but
> no humidifier.  I specifically warned/asked both owners, "You don't plug this
> in, do you?" and they said that they didn't, but certainly it must have been
> used at some point, maybe by a previous owner.  (Indeed one of the pianos
> used to be in Florida.)  I know that elbows of this vintage are breaking on
> pianos all over America, but I wonder if the dryness from the dehumdifier can
> accelerate the process.  (Idiot-street-logic, which I specialize in, would
> dictate that it would.)
>
> Tom Sivak