Wanna Guess? NPR (Not Politically Related)

[Douglasmahard@AOL.COM]

Hi Mitch,

The piano was in a fire or near one.

Doug Mahard

In a message dated 11/13/2000 11:09:30 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
mitch_ruth@hotmail.com writes:

<< I had an interesting call on Saturday and I wanted to see if you wanted to 
 have a little fun with it.
 
 I went out into the hinterlands (not far for me)to a home with an Everett 
 spinet sized piano.  I turned out to be an early 50's model with a bent-key 
 direct blow action (I don't know the proper tech term for it.) It was given 
 to this family by "a friend" so that the little girl there might learn to 
 play.
 
 Of course this piano was about 130 cents flat.  However I am a hearty soul, 
 who reads his pianotech posts, and will tackle this in stride. Upon 
 inspection I discovered that the upper portion of the strings were ENCASED 
 in rust (not just a little corrosion, rust)and the bass windings were black. 
   The plate was a blackish color and the felt was a little gray.  Puzzled I 
 looked behind the kick plate and discovered everything normal for this 
 piano...no rust, windings,plate, and bridges looked good.  The lid on the 
 piano was a little scarred but not badly.  there was a small place on the 
 side of the piano that was blistered.
 
 I determined that the piano would be impossible to tune without a 
 restringing and I could not recommend restringing this instrument.  After a 
 discussion with the parents, I found they could not afford a better 
 instrument at this time, so I fixed a few ringing dampers so the piano could 
 at least make noise.  While I was doing that, I came up with what I thought 
 was what happened to this piano that created the problem.
 I thought it might be fun to see if you can guess what happened to it.  I 
 don't know for sure but I think I've got it down.
 
 Now "It's an Everett" is not an acceptable answer for the purposes of my 
 game.  The only prize with be the satisfaction of a job well done and the 
 joy of participating in a string that does not include American politics (By 
 the way I hear we are going to change our national motto to "Just Keep 
 Counting").
 
 Have at it
 
 Mitch Ruth
 DeMossville, KY >>