Singing Samick

[Alan R. Barnard]

I tune a fairly new Samick Infantile Horizontal Piano in a Methodist Church.
(The piano's religion is probably not a factor, but you never know.)

The treble of this thing is a mess of wild strings. I've tapped 'em down,
didn't help. Cussed at 'em, no help. Turned off the ceiling fans, no help.

Customer complains about the piano's sound. It does have rock maple felt on
the hammers but I think they are mostly hearing the extra "vibrato" of the
last 4 octaves.

With a pretty tight pinblock and what seems to be a fair amount of
string-movement resistance from pin to capo, setting a good stable pitch and
tuning unisons is a bit of a challenge anyway--but I'm confident I get out
all of the string interaction beats and still have some busy little notes.

Questions:

1. I only tune one other Samick; is this common for the brand?

2. What is the purpose for wide understing felt? To hold moisture so the
stings will rust faster? To look pretty in the showroom? To collect dirt?

3. Anything else to try? (Bridge and everything else 'looks' fine.)

Alan Barnard