Baldwin SD

[Andrew and Rebeca Anderson]

Avery,
Back at national that happened on a piano we were voicing and we just 
backed off the one pin and took up on the other to move the string 
around a little.  Can happen with aggressive lifting putting a little 
bend where you don't want it.  If the piano is single-strung, as I 
understand, you may have to try lifting to ease the bend...  There 
was something in the journal a while back about damage to agraffes 
too...that would require removing the string to polish the 
agraffe.  Not your first choice ;-)

Andrew Anderson

At 06:00 PM 3/31/2006, you wrote:


>List (& especially any of you major rebuilders out there),
>
>Do any of you have any direct experience with an SD-6 #118127 (1952 
>I was told)? My atlas is
>at the university.
>
>Today, I went to look at one for sale at a store at a good price. 
>For several years, we've been
>needing one to put into our large orchestra/band rehearsal hall to 
>avoid having to move one into
>there from our major performance hall for rehearsals of big concertos.
>
>It's been refinished and had new hammers (Renner Blues, I think) 
>installed on the old shanks.
>Graphited knuckles, etc. Anyway, I'm not worried about all that. 
>That, I can handle.
>
>My question is, there is a tone problem in the middle agraffe 
>section. (It's so hard to describe
>sounds in an e-mail.) The dealer kept saying he thought it was 
>primarily a hammer fitting/string
>leveling problem. Yes, there is some of that that needs to be done. 
>But I believe it's a problem
>in the agraffes themselves. This isn't a hammer fitting type of 
>sound. It's a distorted/zinging
>kind of sound. Like a termination problem or something not seated 
>well. There are some agraffes
>that are not parallel to the strings and I first thought that was 
>the problem. But there are also
>some with that same sound where the agraffes are lined up correctly. 
>I'm assuming it probably came
>that way from the factory. And it's only in that one section. I 
>didn't have my tools with me because
>I didn't expect anything like that to come up, so I couldn't even 
>experiment a little. You don't
>really notice it all that much when just normally playing it. Just 
>when playing each note individually.
>Especially with a little power.
>
>The piano has never been restrung. Even still has the aluminum 
>wrapped type upper bass strings. But
>it sounds great. A BIG bass sound! Decent sustain. The only real 
>problem is in that one area. Have any
>of you run across this? Can the agraffes be straightened a little 
>without removing the strings? My
>semi-educated guess is that that section is going to have to be 
>restrung with new agraffes. Or at least,
>"redone" agraffes. They did buff the tops of them, though. :-)
>
>This is pre-accujust hitch pins and from the first treble break 
>down, has one single-tie string on
>each unison. The tech at the store said they could correct the 
>problem, which I would prefer to have
>done before we buy it but I was wondering if any of you had any 
>ideas? The dealer said he'd pay me
>to do the regulation & voicing. Which it needs.
>
>Am I on the right track about the agraffes? Thanks.
>
>Avery Todd
>University of Houston