weird string

[Paul McCloud]

Tom:
    I'd look at the bridge notching and see if there is sufficient clearance carved away from the bridge pin for the string to vibrate freely.  I've seen this a few times.  It's difficult to see.  You might have to move some bass strings to have access.  I'd bet that the bridge is somehow compromised, as you said.   You might just have to get the customer to allow/pay you to remove the action to solve this puzzle.
    Good Luck! 
    Paul McCloud
    San Diego


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Tom Sivak 
To: pianotech
Sent: 01/28/2007 6:13:25 AM 
Subject: weird string


List

I don't think anyone can help me with this, but I'm asking anyway.  

The piano is an older Kimball spinet, and was over 100 cents flat when I arrived.  I did the pitch raise and when I began tuning unisons I found that C#5 was impossible to tune.  The right string was...crazed, for lack of a better word.  

It has very little sustain. The tone is odd, different than any other strings around it.   The pitch seems to go flat after the attack, and I'm talking 50 cents flat.  (It kind of sounds like, "Dow-ooohhh-nnnnn")  When plucked you get a completely different pitch than when struck with the hammer.  (The hammer is not unusually worn nor is there a voicing needle in it; at least nothing is visibly wrong with it.)   

It sounds as if there is something in contact with that one string but I looked from below and the string is unobstructed.  It kind of sounds like there's a mute on the string, but it's at a nodal point and some sound is leaking through.)  I can see the bridge pins from below, and they are all in a row.  (I thought that maybe the bridge pin on that one string drifted over and was in contact with its neighbor.)

All I can think of is that the bridge pin is extremely loose, but to verify or repair that I would have to remove the action, which would cost the client some money.  For now, with her child just beginning piano lessons now that the piano is tuned, that key will not be used very much for a while, so I left it as it is, vowing to give it some thought and figure something out.

Just to give you an example of how 'out' this string is, even the client could tell that it was weird!  (I played the key with all three strings sounding and she went, "Oooh, that sounds bad.")

Any ideas?

Tom Sivak
Chicago
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