[pianotech] interesting piano

[Porritt, David]

I've always had a fear of K&Cs since the only plate that ever broke while I was tuning was a K&C.  Putting "good" and "K&C" in the same sentence didn't seem right.  However, that scale looks like the designers put one over on the accounting people and actually did it right.  I've never seen one like that.

dp

David M. Porritt, RPT
dporritt at smu.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 1:40 PM
To: Pianotech; caut at ptg.org
Subject: [pianotech] interesting piano


I tuned an interesting piano this morning - at 77°F and 79%RH, but that's another thing. It's a Kohler & Campbell spinet, circa 1953, that I've tuned for about 15 years now. I'd love to see this string scale in the spreadsheet. Fans of monochords will count 21! This leaves 4 bichords on the bass bridge for a total of 25 notes in the bass. Then, in a spinet, mind you, there are an additional 11 bichords on a low tenor transition bridge! This makes the first plain wire unison at
A-3 #37, about in the vicinity where a current redesign approach might put it. Couldn't have been Del's doing. He would have been about 9 at the time. <G>

It sounds better than usual, even with the wrapped strings getting funky, and the hammers wearing out. The neat thing is that there's no dramatic pitch change at the low tenor with seasonal changes. It tracks along pretty closely with the high bass, and blends far better than I'm used to hearing in pianos this size.

Somebody was apparently thinking, and was allowed to try to do something right.

Anyone know anything about this?
Ron N