Story and Clark not tuned for 30 years!!

[Samuel Choy]

Hello all,

The other day, I tuned an old Story and Clark upright. When I opened it, I 
found the business card of the last tech who tuned it. It was dated 
07/26/1976, almost exactly 30 years ago.

Norm Larson of South Haven, Minnesota, are you still around?

A gave it a quick inspection, and it appeared to be in decent shape. I 
vacuumed it out for the customer. There didn't appear to be any rust on the 
tuning pins or the strings. Most of the hammers didn't have any grooves, and 
those that did were very slight. The soundboard didn't have any cracks.

I didn't dare raise it to pitch because it had been so long since it was 
tuned. I just tuned it to itself. It was the most horribly out of tune piano 
I have tuned in my short career. When I was over, it still sounded terrible 
to me, but the customer was thrilled. He said it was the best he ever heard 
it sound (he's not a piano player). I was honest and didn't pretend that I 
was happy with how it sounded. I told him that it would take several tunings 
to make it sound good. He's having me back in six months to give it another 
tuning.

The pins seemed to twist before they moved, making the instrument very hard 
to tune. When I moved my tuning hammer, the pitch would go up, then go down 
when I released it. I ended up very carefully applying constant pressure to 
the tuning hammer until I felt the tuning pin turn a little. It worked for 
me, though it took a long time. As far as hammer technique goes, was that 
something you would have done?

Also, the piano had a sticker that boasted a 50 year guarantee on the sound 
board. How the heck could Story and Clark make a 50 year guarantee on the 
sound board? They'd have no idea what conditions the thing would be kept in. 
What did they make the thing out of? 2" thick plywood?

Sam Choy