1925 gulby

[pianolover 88]

pretty big job on customer's 1925 Gulbranson upright; player unit removed 
waaay back when. (Thank God..or whoever) Besides the action overhaul that i 
would end up doing, the keypins and tuning pin coils were quite rusty, so 
not having the Travis Tuning Pin & Coil Cleaner, I had to improvise. I used 
a yellow highlighter, which i cut in half, to use as the cylinder which was 
to hold about 1" length of fuel line hose purchased at the local auto parts 
store. I then found that a standard hammer shank fit perfectly into the 
front of the highlighter where the tip had been. once glued inplace, it was 
chucked into my drill and viola! Coil rust remover. I did go through about 
10 pieces of hose, but in no time flat ALL the coils were sparkling and rust 
free! Then, I cleaned the key pins in the same fashion, but this time I used 
a piece of dense felt, cut to the length of a keypin and about 1/2" square, 
and the drilled a very small hole straight down the middle that would fit 
snuggly over each key pin. The other end was drilled larger to accept a 
large dowel that would be glued and chucked in the drill. worked great! Then 
I drizzeld McLube on all the key pins and they were now smooth as glass! I 
also sprayed the bridges very generously and then used Protek CLP on the the 
rest of the term. points.

Now, I forgot to mention...this piano was between 117-235 cents F L A T  
!!!!!!  It hadn't been touched, let alone tuned in maybe 50 years! I told 
the customer it would probably be best to NOT bring the pitch all the way to 
A440,  and I suggested A 435. I told him if all goes well, we could try for 
A440 at a future date. I explained the very real possibility of some, or 
many broken strings, even if i only bring it to A 435. But something told me 
that because of all the attention to preparation, especially the cleaning of 
the coils and lubing, the old player could take it.
Well, as i began the initial pitch raise, i noticed the strings were 
rendering quickly and not getting held up at all. I was quite surprised at 
just how well this piano from the days of silent films was responding! The 
pitch raise went off without a hitch...no pun intened, and the tuining 
followed in quick succession; All without a SINGLE broken string! Actually, 
I felt it could have probab taken the additional raising to A 440, but I 
didn't want to press my luck.

The really cool thing, is that the original call for this job, which by the 
way, the customer thought all it needed was a "regular tuning", came from my 
short-lived Penny-Saver ad! It turned out that this one job alone payed for 
the ad more than 15 times over! Gotta love it!



Terry Peterson

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