[CAUT] Baldwin SD

[Ron Nossaman]

> It's not a rattling or buzzing kind of sound. It's more of a
> distorted sound where about half the normal power of the string
> is lost & it just sounds weird. Like I said in my original post,
> I'll just bet there's some grooving of some kind inside the
> agraffe holes and thereby creating a termination problem.

Avery,
Is it one agraffe, or a number of them in a row all making the 
noise? If it's a number in a row all making the noise, the 
noise isn't coming from the agraffes. Is the noise contained 
within one wire size, or more than one? If more than one, it's 
not the wire. Is the noise the same from unison to unison? If 
so, it's not hammer to string mating and, it's likely either a 
sympathetic coming from somewhere in the piano, or it's time 
to suspect the soundboard. Did you take crown measurements 
(all over) while you were there, as well as checking for 
bearing? This piano has vertical hitches, yes? If so, you 
can't assume anything at all about the soundboard by checking 
overall bearing, as bearing could have easily been increased 
by the store tech in an attempt to fix or disguise the 
problem. If the board is concave, it's too easy to have 
negative front bearing with positive bearing overall. That 
won't necessarily cause this problem, but it can. I'd also try 
clamping a jumbo vise grip to a rear bridge pin in the middle 
of the problem area and see what that does. If it helps, the 
board's a goner.

  Don't make the mistake of all the owners of pianos I've 
condemned in their living rooms, that whatever the problem is 
will be easily and cheaply fixable by the tech. Since the tech 
in this case is you, know what you've got before you let them 
buy it.

Ron N