Remedial string leveling

[Barbara Richmond]

Hi Ric,

I had struggled with these strings last winter/spring  and was giving them
another go around after reading how <easy> it was for other people.
Granted, these aren't fresh strings (about 10 years old) and they must never
have been leveled by the rebuilder--they were <really awful>.  Because there
were some notes that consistently gave me trouble voicing wise, I decided
I'd try again.  (OK, I'll admit it, I was also spurred on because a Steinway
artist was going to be playing the piano.)

I'm happy to have all the responses, the more folks write, the better, as
far as I'm concerned.  Maybe the effort I expend is different--especially
remembering the stage hand who lifted the Steinway D keyboard out of my car
and looked at me like I was crazy when I told him how heavy it was....

Barbara Richmond, RPT




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ric Brekne" <ricbrek@broadpark.no>
To: "pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 12:16 PM
Subject: Remedial string leveling


> Hi Barbara
>
> Takk for sist as they say over here !
>
> I read your post with interest and it seemed to me your greatest concern
> was not getting enough leverage to pull / push up on the strings.  If this
> is the case I would like to hear a discussion about just how much force
> people are using to accomplish string leveling.  I have always used
> minimal force in doing this job, not wanting to over stress the brass
> holes in the agraffes, nor cause any undo wear on the capo.  As such, I
> use Joe Gosses version of the string leveling tool (making sure the piano
> is reasonably level to begin with) and lift only what I absolutely have to
> on the first pass.  I dont do broadband string lifting in the expectation
> of getting rid of some string noises. Rather I wait to hear what I have
> and if I need to minimize some string noise then I may try some additional
> lifting for whatever unisons are affected.
>
> btw.. I mention the bit about getting the piano in level first because I
> watched a fellow use this tool not so long ago and he had gotten all done
> and started mating hammers to strings and noticed that he had to
> individually file almost all his hammers so the left side was higher then
> the other.  When I asked him whether he'd leveled his piano first or not
> he seemed to think it was not neccessary ... because the hammers would "of
> course be automatically tilted with the piano"... grin.. I had to giggle a
> bit despite myself.
> Cheers
> RicB
>
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