[pianotech] Raising rates in recession

[David Love]

I mean that the total amount that a  note will drop is a function of the increase in tension of the notes leading up to the target note as well as the notes that you pull sharp beyond the target note. So as you tune up to C4 it starts to drop. Then you tune C4 and as you pull the notes above C4 sharp C4 continues to drop. So the amount that C4 has dropped at the point that you actually tune it is less than total amount of the drop it will experience once you've tuned beyond it. Therefore the net offset required will be somewhat less than you suggested.


David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Terry Farrell <mfarrel2 at tampabay.rr.com>
Sender: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org
Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2010 07:44:17 
To: <pianotech at ptg.org>
Reply-To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Raising rates in recession

I'm not sure what you mean by your first sentence - when I pitch raise  
I start from A0 and raise all unisons as I go. My general observation  
is that if the piano will need 25% overpull in the tenor and 35%  
overpull in the treble, then drop in pitch one observes in those  
sections will approximate the % overpull needed.

My comment about not wanting to pull the string too sharp (like 40 or  
60 cents sharp) was based not on anything concrete (like a breaking  
strength), but rather comments I've read suggesting that you can  
distort a string by pulling it too sharp. I really don't know if that  
is true or not. Nor do I know what the nature of any potential damage  
is (permanent stretch? digging grooves in aggraffes/capo? bridge tops/ 
pin?). Most comments I've read suggest it is best to not pull a string  
more than 25 cents sharp to be sure to avoid damaging it. I try to not  
exceed that on nice pianos. I don't worry too much about it on junk  
(most pianos).

You are quite right about the breaking %s. Many moons ago I had a 100- 
year-old Everett grand in my shop for restringing (my piano). Just for  
the fun on it, I was curious how sharp you could pull the strings  
before they broke. It was quite apparent all the strings on the piano  
were original. I probably tested about a dozen of them before getting  
bored. All of them broke in the 300 to 400 cent sharp range.

Terry Farrell

On Jul 3, 2010, at 1:02 AM, David Love wrote:

> Probably not quite that much since the total movement of the pitch  
> to the
> flat side in this case comes from tuning the strings on both sides  
> of the
> note.  So if you are tuning up from the bottom and get to C4, for  
> example,
> it will have dropped maybe half of that amount, say 115 cents, which  
> means
> that even at 30% overpull you only need to overpull by 34.5 cents.   
> While it
> may be more in the treble keep in mind that pulling C6 on a Steinway  
> B (for
> example) one full semi tone sharp (100 cents) raises the break point  
> only
> from 60% to 67%.  Still quite manageable and much more than you are  
> likely
> to need.  Breakage on pitch raises, in my view, doesn't come from  
> exceeding
> break point percentages overall, it comes from friction issues  
> through the
> bearing points and that can happen even without a significant  
> overpull.
>
> David Love
> www.davidlovepianos.com