Inviting Flames was Re: Never Been Tuned

[Susan Kline]

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
At 03:51 PM 6/29/2005 -0500, you wrote:
>Maybe (Egad!) I'm wrong.

Now, no need to take drastic measures. <grin>


>But I still want to know what would permanently change in a piano to take
>pitch down=97in this case 700 cents!
>
>I can't believe the wire stretches that much or the case warps that much or
>the plate shifts (at all) .... it's a heck of a mystery. Where does the
>tension go?
>
>Maybe this piano went to a spa, got a really good massage, and took Vallium
>...

Maybe I treated it with vodka, and it got all mellow ...

Maybe the board flattened, flatter than a pancake ... (is negative bearing=
=20
flatter than a pancake?) Then there are those bridge pins, you know, the=20
ones that have bent over backwards to be accommodating. ("We don't _need_=20
no stinkin' sidebearing!") That and a flat board go along with Ontario=20
summers and winters, many, many, summers and winters, one after another,=20
back and forth, trading off one on one, in the way they do.

And remember those sagging tuning pins in the deep bass? You know, the ones=
=20
with the little quarter-moons of space above them, where they've been=20
pulled down enough to lean on the plate? While the tenor wasn't quite that=
=20
bad, I imagine (this tuning was in 1979, I imagine, not remember) that they=
=20
had pulled off true at least a little bit. This was that sort of piano.=20
Painted light green, (or was it some other light color?), as well. Why,=20
that's enough to make a piano sag, isn't it? Would YOU keep way up to snuff=
=20
if somebody painted you light green?

Wire does stretch. Joints sort of creep and sometimes outright fail. If you=
=20
want to see a piano warp, tune a spinet with all four feet on the ground,=20
and then put three of the feet on caster cups, and leave the fourth (left=20
front will do) hanging in midair. Test the octaves across the break ....=20
<grin> been there, done that, only in reverse.

Susan


---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/21/ac/0c/3b/attachment.htm

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--