"DOYNG" - a puzzler

[Joseph Garrett]

Just completed doing our yearly "task force" for a small Christian College,
in Portland. The "Task Force" was comprised of Jerry Heermans, (my
teacher/mentor), Jeff Moore, John Rhodes and me. We spent an uneventful day,
yesterday, tuning away. Today was a whole different kettle of fish. Subject
of the "DOYNG" sound was a Wurly Studio. The "DOYNG" was on note 56. When
the hammer returned to the rest rail it gave out this weird metallic sound
that is best described as a "DOYNG", (somewhat like what a muted harpsichord
string would sound like when struck/plucked. We, (all 4 of us!), checked
everything: the hammer spring, the jack and spring, the hammer butt, the
flange/pinning, the damper, the wippen. When manually lifting the hammer off
the rail to half blow and allowing to drop back...."DOYNG"! Yikes! Finally
we took the action out of the piano and took it to the top of a big desk.
Set it down and tested again...."DOYNG"! Jeff Moore, who has as close to
perfect pitch as anyone I know, said: "it's sounding a D3! Me: "How the heck
can it make a musical sound when it's not even in the piano?!" Jeff: "Don't
know, but that's what it is!" We all agreed there was definately "gremlins"
at work!<G> Finally, in desperation, I grabbed the hammer head and gave a
severe twisting/rocking as in testing for a loose hammer head. When I got
done and had concluded the hammer was not loose, I noticed that the hammer
was higher than the rest of the hammer line! What the? Gave it another
Twist/Rock, almost to the point of breaking the shank. Did "the test",
again, it was gone! Hmmmm? Now what? Another violent test for loose hammer
and off it came! Another Yikes! Cleaned the shank and hammer hole, reglued,
tested and that solved it! Darndest sound for a loose hammer I've ever
heard. The rest of the 4 J's agreed. Well, back to tunin' college
clunkers!<G> the rest of the day was a bit more mundane until everyone else
had left and I discovered the last piano to tune had been vandalized!
Whoopee!
I hope you all had a more productive/mundane day of it!<G>
Best Regards,
Joe Garrett, RPT, (Oregon)
Captain, Tool Police
Squares Are I