Bummer Old Upright

[Farrell]

I know you old pros have been through this years ago and are now too wise to
find yourself here - so this is for the newbies.

Old upright. 1918 Starr. Uprightitis Bigtime. (Hey, what can I say - I'll
work on just about anything........he had a little old Hammond organ that
needed fixin' also........naw!) About a dozen bass string WAY below pitch,
rest of piano 60 cents flat. Half of the tenor tuning pins were tapped down
so that coils were squished up against plate/tuning pin bushing.

I identified all the loose pins I could - about 20 of 'em. Suggested to the
guy piano replacement. He said go for it. I shimmed the 20 pins, and another
10 or 15 that I found loose in the course of messing with the first 20.
Raised pitch up to A440 in two passes, tuned. Identified another dozen or so
loose pins that I ???hope??? will last for a few months - but should be
shimmed next time. I even asked the dude half way through if he wanted to
pay me for what I had done and cut his losses - didn't bite. Made a good
day's pay anyway!

What puzzled me was that I went quickly through the pins in the center of
the piano and they seemed weak, but good enough for now. After shimming a
number of the pins, I noticed that a bunch of tuning pins that had not been
identified as being loose, now had the characteristic of jumping about a
half step down when trying to just move the pitch down a hair. Could this be
related to the fact that the coils were squished up to the plate?

Terry Farrell
Piano Tuning & Service
Tampa, Florida
mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com