Dear Michelle, Don Wigent hear. I raise pitch on pianos on a daily bases and almost never have a string breakage problem. I raise the piano all the way the first pass, and a little more to compensate for drop. I tune quickly but I would not say that I jerk the pins around. I have heard some tuners move the string up and down and up and down in a radical fashion, but I don't think that that is what you do. I am not sure that that would cause a problem of string breakage; it might make the tuning les stable. So I can't say what the problem is, however it is not from raising the piano to pitch in 1 pass. Tell us more please. Don -----Original Message----- From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Michelle Stranges Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 2:07 PM To: College and University Technicians Subject: [CAUT] huge pitch raise question Hi folks- Happy New Year! :D It happens more often than I'd like (and once is enough to be honest) and while I "feel" that it's not my lovely hammer technique ;) , maybe it's something to do with some sort of "string thing".. Has anyone else run across this? (Or maybe a PTG article I have overlooked?) Upon visiting a fairly new piano and finding it dreadfully flat (50 cents or more) , I carefully yet quickly, raise it up at least half of what it was. And I do have a (good?) habit of initially moving the pin in the flat direction before moving it sharp in order to loosen any friction from any rust or whatever that may have accumulated. Just a *quick* jerk to the left- nothing serious at all. Now.. having raised the piano up (with a second pass to at least get it up to pitch) I start doing a "fine tuning". it is either at this second pass or my fine tuning where strings start to break. In the usual places too- nothing out of the ordinary. (Am I doing "too many tunings" (up to 3 times) to raise this completely up? Seems like that wouldn't be an issue, especially if it's new(er)? Have I introduced some sort of unusual friction/heat or something?? Now this doesn't happen all of the time, but I am acutely aware that it could and I wonder if there's something in my technique or my sequence of pitch raising that makes these newer strings break. (I could understand some strings breaking if the piano was older..) I know tuners who on the first go, bring the whole piano up tp pitch but I've always been a little leary of that. I'm wondering if they also have strings break on their second pass/ fine tuning.. I fully realize that they (the strings) are now at different spots on all of the contact and termination points so I would assume that would add to the puzzle. And I'd like to also add that it seems that the tork alone on this 1/2 way-to-pitch, pitch raised piano feels MUCH higher than it did before (and more than "normal") and I chalk that up to the higher tension I have just introduced. I am a jerk tuner. (Stop laughing :) I would be VERY interested in viewing the number of passes you folks do to bring a piano up to pitch and whether or not you've experienced this-especially on ones that aren't so old. Hope this post reads OK- and I look forward to your responses! :) Michelle
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