stumped

[Alan Barnard]

My modus operandi in these situations (where replacement is not an option) is to point out that (a) it can't be made much better than just playable without far exceeding the piano's value even after the work, and (c), if you want, I can do what I can. In this case, a couple of HEAVY applications of CA (with a couple days between drenchings plus whatever patch, patch, patch the action will need.

Since most of the nightmare you describe (beyond the cheapo brand -- made by Baldwin, yes? While they were drunk .... anyway, I digress) relates to the block, CA MIGHT work. Give no guarantee.
You didn't talk about the bridges and ribs?

Alan Barnard
Salem, MO




Original message
From: "Leslie Bartlett" 
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Received: 12/3/2007 10:17:16 PM
Subject: stumped


I tuned (no I really didn't) for "Dennis" today- and old Howard (sn 220***- for which I didn't find a reasonable match in Pierce's). The retired engineer had married a Russian lady, young enough to be his daughter- and nicely I made that mistake.  Bass strings were dead, multiple bridge cracks, the strings painted gold, several replaced, about six pins in the center where a tiny amount of counterclockwise pressure sent the string a half or whole tone flat. They also popped loudly when they let loose- like Baldwin, only it was virtually no useful tension on the pin.  There were a couple pins up around note 80 which were the same way.  Hammer 88 was within 1mm of having the  felt open up at the bottom of the grooves on the flat-topped hammers.  Problem was, the man had bought this as a birthday present for this wife who is a HIGH level concert player while she was out of the country.     I was there over four hours, so mad that they guy had gotten screwed (I believe the damage was done before prior owner sold it to him- she wasn't a player, so bought it mostly as furniture), and that I couldn't make a decent tuning.  The Russian asked if I had ever tuned a piano like this before








.       I pulled the action and went through everything with him, and he seemed more than satisfied that little if anything could be done- but the wife- I think she wanted me dead.  
When and HOW does one just give up on a POS when nothing works?  This really bothered me.  I've tuned Howards before and hated them, but got them tuned.  Nothing rendered decently, nothing stayed stable for me.  I've never had anything quite like this before, and hope I never do again.
They can't afford another piano, though their house was probably valued at twice mine, and they had two rather new cars (Honda an Buick) I think.      I'm coming off a week of three Houston Symphony Tunings, another major Hall, two tunings of the most expensive piano in town, and directing two performances of the opera Amahl and the Night Visitors.   I know I was tired


  But I had just done quite ok on a Petrof for one of my really persnickety customers, so I haven't completely lost my "tuning mind".  I'm mad they got screwed, mad she can't play musically on this pos, but still feel somehow I should have been able to do something to make it work.   Sorry to be kind of nuts here, but I'm feeling kind of lost.
les bartlett 
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