instability

[Susan Kline]

Ed, were all four casters firmly on the floor? These little things flex very
easily if one caster is up in the air.

Susan

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At 02:41 PM 2/20/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Weird piano today.  It is a Baldwin Spinet, not too old, maybe 7-10 years.
>I tuned it in August, owner wants it done every six months.  
>  It was sitting against the wall, and there was a heater duct behind the
>piano, blowing hot air against the bottom of the piano.  Maybe that is the
>source of the problem.  Maybe not.
>  We moved the piano (on my advice), and I proceeded to check it.  A4 was
>37 cents flat on my SAT!  I did a pitch raise, and then did it a second
>time.  Then did some regulation things.  Then proceded to try to tune.
>lower section was flat again, OK, bring it up.  center section (C#3 to F#5)
>mostly flat in lower half of section, not too bad upper part.  Treble
>section flat.  OK, tune it up.  Go back and check.  C#3 about 8 cent sharp,
>next several notes equally sharp.  OK, bring back down. Get up to 4th
>octave, check octaves, C#3 (D, D# etc, up for half the octave is now 8cents
>flat.  OK, bring up, get to 4th octave, it is now 8 cents sharp.  The thing
>see sawed back and forth several more times.  I finally got it so the
>octaves didn't actually scream, and quit.  I will go back next week and try
>again.  Maybe it will have settled down by then.
>  I thought that maybe I had a broken frame.  I've never had a piano go up
>and down like that while I was tuning.  This was more than a little drift
>as you work on adjacent notes.  This was entire groups of notes going
berzerk.
>  What say you, oh might gurus.  Any thoughts one what ails this thing or
>is it just haunted?
>
>
>Ed Carwithen
>John Day, Oregon
>
>
>

Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com