tangy tone

[Les Smith]

First, although it's relatively unimportant, are you sure about the
serial number on this piano? The one you gave would make it almost
160 years old! The metalic sound you describe is usually associated
with poor termination at one end of the speaking length of the string           
or the other--sometimes both! You can readily eliminate most other
causes by plucking the string(s) with the damper raised. Assuming that
the string has adequate down-bearing, one would look for a loose bridge
pin or pins at one end (assuming that the string IS fully seated on
the bridge), and suspect the agraffe, itself, as the cause of the problem
at the other end. The obvious solutions would be to CA the loose bridge
pin(s) at one end, WITH THE STRING REMOVED, OF COURSE, and/or replace the
offending agraffe at the other. If you can't obtain a replacement agraffe,
always the BEST solution, you can CAREFULLY ream the offending string
hole. EASY DOES IT because you will be slightly lessening the downbearing
of the affected string! Loose bridge pins can cause so many problems that
many techs routinely now CA EVERY bridge pin as a prelude to restring-
ing a piano, whether or not they APPEAR to be tight. I hope this helps.
Those twangy buzzes can really drive a tech crazy and most of us are
close enough to the edge ALREADY! Why else would we have become techs in
the first place?!

Les Smith
lessmith@buffnet.net
 
On Sun, 26 Oct 1997, Edward Carwithen wrote:

> I need some suggestions as to how to deal with a bad sounding Bb-4.  This
> is on a Chickering baby grand #3941.  It was reconditioned about 6 years
> ago; new strings, new pins, Hammers look new as well.  Several notes have a
> metallic sound.  I checked to see if the damper wire was somehow touching
> one string, and that is not the case.  I found one string where the string
> was not seated sufficiently on the stagger pin, and that helped.  But on
> Bb-4 and the octave above Bb-5, there is still bad sound.  It seems to be
> coming from the center string in both cases rather than the treble or bass
> string.  The hammers were not hitting all the strings equally, the dstreble
> string being barely struck by the edge of the hammer, but that was true of
> many of the strike zones in that upper middle section, and I re-adjusted
> them so that the strike area was in the center of the hammer, then reshaped
> the hammer slightly so as to even out the surface of the hammer.  Still
> haven't found the way to get the tone to stop sounding like an anvil.  It
> appears that all of the strings are being struck together.  They come out
> of an aggraffe (sp?), so I expect they are even where the hammer hits.  I
> did pull up the hammer to the string and examine the sycronisity of the
> hammer strike.
>   
> What else can I look for?????????????
> 
> Ed Carwithen
> musicman@eoni.com
> John Day, OR
> Ed Carwithen
> Oregon
>