left-handed tuning

[Leslie Bartlett]

Uhm, I sure don't see Dave Porritt chiming in anywhere.  Hey DAVE- you gonna
chime in??????????????????????????????????????    I spent a day with him
when I first couldn't figure out TL 97, and he tunes right handed, 3:00,
straight arm.  Dumbest thing in the whole world I thought.  Then he would
set his fingers on top of the plate (verticals) and ever so gently lift the
hammer just a tiny bit with his thumb, and the darned things slipped in like
they had been glued.  I wish he'd "splain it, cause it worked like a charm,
and he says there's good data to support that style of tuning.  It sure
worked beautifully for him.  After that, I decided that "what works for
someone works for someone", and I'll never criticize a hammer technique
again.  that was an amazing demonstration to me because it worked so well
and so consistently.
les bartlett 

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 6:25 PM
To: Pianotech List
Subject: Re: left-handed tuning

Michelle Smith wrote:
> Thanks to everyone for your informative responses!  The reason I 
> started thinking about all of this was because of a piano I never want 
> to see again.  (Ha Ha!)  It was a school upright that had been sitting 
> in a small practice room forever.  Something had happened with the 
> pinblock and the pins would barely move!  When I tuned left handed, I 
> seemed to have to bring the string really far sharp to get the pin to 
> move even slightly.  One of the strings broke and many others were 
> probably on their way.  When I switched to my right hand, the pins 
> moved a little easier.  My theory is that the point of pressure is 
> different when tuning left handed (upward) as opposed to right handed 
> (downward) and that particular piano just couldn't take it.

What's happening is pin flex - flag poling, and twist. Pulling in the
direction of the string (down, in a vertical), you can move the pin quite a
ways in the block and barely hear the pitch change. Then you let the
pressure off and it goes sharp. 
Pushing up left handed opposite the direction of the string, the opposite
happens. There's a hammer position for verticals that, when you're pulling
in the right direction, the downward pin flex very nearly equals the twist
you're putting in the pin, and when you let go, they cancel and the pitch
doesn't change. It's not a magic bullet, it's just another of a hundred
things you notice in tuning, and adapt for as you go.
Ron N

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