[CAUT] Agraffe alignment

[Jeff Tanner]

Some months back, someone (Kent Swafford maybe?) posted a picture of  
Steinway agraffes all out of alignment.  I don't remember the entire  
ensuing discussion, but my recollection is that there was a consensus  
that it was definitely taboo.  I just had an experience this week  
that gave me reason to think there might have been some rational  
reason for it.

I tuned a Kawai RX-2 in a customer's home which had an obnoxious buzz  
in the left string of B27 at the agraffe -- the first unison in the  
low tenor and the first plain wire triple unison.  I worked and  
worked with a string lifter and a screwdriver and the buzz would  
subside a bit, but soon came right back as obnoxiously as before.   
Without access to a supply of Kawai compatible agraffes and not  
particularly wanting to deal with the consequences of restringing  
those two unisons, I decided to nudge the agraffe just a bit tighter  
in its hole.

That put the agraffe just a bit out of true alignment, but not badly  
enough to significantly distort the tunability of the unison (or the  
functionality of the damper), but gave the wire just enough of a  
fresh point of contact in the agraffe hole to eliminate the buzz.  It  
was actually that email post with that picture of the nasty looking  
Steinway agraffe alignment that gave me the idea.

I've seen some pretty rough agraffes coming out of Steinways from the  
late 60s and early 70s.  I wonder now if maybe those agraffes had  
been turned to help with buzzing or other noises I've heard from  
Steinway agraffes from that era - just maybe the buzzes trumped the  
tuning consequences?

Jeff


Jeff Tanner, RPT
University of South Carolina



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