Overlapping strings

[Ron Nossaman]

>This past week I tuned a Cable Nelson console which suffered from a case 
>of strings that overlap in the tuning pin section, making it a tad 
>difficult to set unisons (or anything else for that matter).  You know, 
>you get one string set, tune the next, and it throws the previous one off 
>again.  Grrr.  Would it help to dab a bit of Protek on them?  Would it be 
>too risky being that close to the pinblock?  Has anyone done this before?
>
>Thanks for your help.
>
>Barbara Richmond, RPT

I don't know if Protek would help or not. Never tried it, but I have my 
doubts. This is a standard situation on about a billion Kimball consoles, 
and more than enough Baldwin studios too, and there is no excuse for it. I 
just tune them early and often until I'm finished with the rest of the 
tuning. Then I tune them one last time and quit. I assume if the 
manufacturer couldn't or wouldn't produce a piano that is physically 
tunable, they never intended for it to be tuned, and I'm only willing to 
battle junk so far.

Ron N