Gawd am I having fun yet?

[Avery Todd]

Hi Joe,

Well, I had a fun day too, but not as much fun as you had. I tuned 2 Steinway
B's, an 'S' (one B and the S very well rebuilt; the other B about 3 yrs. old),
a Pramberger 7' (or whatever the size is close to that) and a Mason & Hamlin
BB (sort of decently rebuilt but could very definitely be improved. Especially
the regulation). At least there were no broken strings, pitch raises, etc.,
etc.! :-) All in all though, a very good day! The university job has spoiled
me though. I'm not used to doing 5 tunings in a day! Even if I wanted to, I
doubt I'd be able to find 5 that I could actually get to! :-)

Avery

At 04:54 PM 05/18/03 -0700, you wrote:
>Just had ta give you all a chuckle/frown for the day.
>Yesterday, (Saturday), I had the dubious honor of working on "Mom's Piano".
>A 1953 Cable-Nelson Spinet. What a marvelous bit of stupid engineering!
>Problem: a distinct clink/clunk when the Sustain pedal is fully depressed.
>Hmmm? I first checked down below at the pedals, trapwork, etc. Found part of
>it: the trapwork, Horizontal lever was banging into the plate strut, that
>was so nicely put right next to it. Slightly repositioned the Horizontal so
>it wouldn't do that. Romped on the pedal to check and the Clink was still
>there! Hmmmm? After some head scratching, I got out the trusty flash light
>and looked straight down the upper treble strut. Pressed the pedal and
>Voila'! The damper lift rod was banging into that plate strut! OK, so I
>start to remove the action, which has a "unitized" bracket that holds the
>"sticker" rail as well. Humph! I've seen these before and as I recalled, no
>problem....the whole enchilada comes out as a unit. OK take the action nuts
>and one Wurly type action screw out. Remove the metal braces that support
>the "Sticker rail" and give it an "umph"! NADA! The action will almost clear
>the action bracket bolts, but not quite. AND...then the derned thing is
>ridgid...won't go up/down/back/forth. Time for trusty flashlight again. Get
>on back, stick head in lower section of piano, shine light up and lo and
>behold the action brackets are hitting the back end of the keys!!! Damn!
>Remove all the keys....Out it comes, in one fell swoop!
>That aint the end of all this!! One other problem I surmised was that the
>key cover didn't function very well. So, I decide to fix that too! Big
>mistake! They installed the "guide/pivot bar", that is attached to the Key
>Cover, sandwiched between the key frame and the key bed!!!! Solution Take
>the key frame out. They had enough screws in that key frame to almost build
>another piano! Gawd, am I having fun yet. Fortunately, the client was
>forewarned that there would be an additional charge of at least an hour's
>worth, but this little darling put me through the ringer, to be sure! Don't
>ya just love it?<G> (Give me an "Over-Damper" Piano any day!!!!!<G>)
>Best Regards,
>Joe Garrett, RPT, (Oregon)
>
>Been There, Didn't Like It, So I'm Here To Stay! [G}
>
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