another cracked plate question

[Richard Moody]

The broken plate was repaired when quite new?    Sounds like someone
shucked a warranty issue.  3 cracks "repaired"?  How were they
repaired...welded?    You discovered another crack, yet you did not hear
a crack or pop or thunk?   
A Baldwin A, what size is this?  They (clients) are quite attached to it
but let many years go by before tuning it?   In that case perhaps it
held its tune very well at half a step low. How out of tune was it with
itself when you got there?  Tune it half a step low and see how it
holds.
  I tuned an old Emerson 1880's upright, and afterward tied a bass
string.  It was then I discovered a hairline crack right across the
plate just below the keybed, yet the tuning was good. I told them about
it and told them to call if it went out of tune right away.  Its been
two or three years.  
	Out on the farm here in South Dakota I have over a dozen old
uprights in several piles out in the trees.  The latest edition, an old
Beckwith, I decided to see how strong the plate was.  I toppled it off
the end of the pickup.  I picked it up with the tractor loader and
dropped it again.   I nudged it upright then took out the action, keys
and keybed. The plate was intact.  I pushed it over backward and then
took the loader and placed it on the middle of the plate and pressed
down lifting the front end of the tractor off the ground.  The plate
still did not break with all this force at its weakest point and weakest
load bearing. I might get a video but then it will probably break, but
at least that would be recorded and we could hear how it sounds.   Hmmmm
maybe the thing was half a step low....  

	Richard Moody  

	"To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand." 
Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883 - 1955); Spanish philosopher.



-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On
Behalf Of Bob Hull
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 10:57 PM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: another cracked plate question


I have read all most of the cracked plate subject
archives and still don't have quite the info I need.  
So, any thoughts would be appreciated:  
This week I went to tune a Baldwin A (about 33 years
old) and found it a half step low.  It had been many
years since any previous tunings.  The customer showed
me 3 places where the plate had cracked and been
repaired while the piano was quite new.  So figuring
the repairs had held all of these years I set out to
bring it up to pitch, still carefully.  I did not
overshoot 440 but planned to tune it up to 440, see
where it dropped back and tune it there.  During the
process, only raising the pitch about 20 cents at at
time, I found another crack in another place about two
inches from a repaired crack.  I don't think it was
there when I started.  At that point I informed the
customer and abandoned my tuning. I said I would get
back with them about what to do.  They are quite
attached to this piano.

Since it has been cracked and repaired before and now
there is another crack, do you think that repairing
this crack would be futile because it is just a weak
plate?

Could I find another plate that could be used?  The
previous repairs are bulky and messy looking welds
which the customer doesn't like the appearance of. 

Bob Hull

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