Cross-country piano move

[Jim]

Dear list:

You can prove to yourself that moving an upright piano just a few
inches can distort the tuning between Bass and Tenor.  Here's how.
With your knees, lift the keybed up a 1/4 inch and slide a wedge
under the front caster of the treble leg.  Measure all the A's on
the piano with an AccuTuner.  Remove the wedge and place it under the
Bass leg and repeat the measurements.  You will find that pianos with
skinny backs will stress more than the thicker backs do.  The same
results can be had when a vertical piano is placed on a dolly for
moving.  I discovered this in 1952.  I had just tuned a spinet for
delivery and while it was sitting on the dolly ready to go on the truck,
I played a few chords across the break.  The octaves did not match, so
I took the piano down and started to retune it, but it sounded OK back
on the floor.  So, I put it back on the dolly and it was out of tune
again.

Here is the cause.   The overstringing of the Bass section  tends to
warp the back because their pull is at a higher level in respect to
the back assembly than are the treble strings. This tends to curl the
back diagonally which tends to lift the treble leg.  You may have
noticed that on spinets it is usually the treble leg caster that is
loose on the floor.  Wurlitzer used to put springs between the caster
and the socket to keep the caster from rattling when a piano was
placed in a home where both front casters were not seated evenly on
the floor.

Fortunately, we don't have this same problem with grand pianos because
they usually have only three legs.  But watch out for those 6 legged
monsters, they will rattle your cage (Oops, case).

Jim Coleman, Sr.

PS to ALL: Always proofread your posts so you don't out any words.

On Sat, 5 Oct 1996, Keith A. McGavern wrote:

> >I have moved hundreds of new and used pianos over the years. I just have
> >not found that moving causes the piano to go out of tune. The exception
> >would be occasionally when the new location is not level. Then the bass
> >might go out-of-tune with the mid and treble section. Even that has
> >happened only a few times. "Settling after the stress of the move"--I
> >respectfully have problem with that theory.
> >
> >Sy Zabrocki
>
> Dear Sy, List,
>
> I used to think along the lines you mention as well.  However, that changed
> some time back.
>
> While it is true that some pianos seem little affected when moved, I know
> of two specific instances where I moved one console less than a foot and
> another console across the room after a tuning.  This distorted the tuning
> recognizably beyond belief.  Since that time I have adhered to the
> possibility that there are some pianos that are affected by a move and
> can't take it, regardless of distance, and do need time to settle, adjust,
> acclimate, or whatever word works best here.
>
> And unless one knows which pianos are the stable ones and which are not, I
> have chosen to adhere to a waiting period of some degree, however smalland
> when the circumstances permit, if only 1) to protect my interest in
> professional advice given to a customer, and 2) to not have to do the job
> over again.
>
> Keith A. McGavern, RPT
> kam544@ionet.net
> Oklahoma Chapter 731
> Oklahoma Baptist University
> Shawnee, Oklahoma, USA
>
>
>