Nobody Knows the Treble I've Seen ...

[Susan Kline]

At 08:39 PM 7/28/2005 -0500, you wrote:
>Thanks, gonna try that next time. Or maybe a damp cloth over the hammers
>and light touches with the old iron.
>
>If you use the alcohol and water (I'd probably use unadulterated, i.e., non
>scented, 70 or 90% isopropyl) do you have to wait overnight or use a dryer
>before you can tell how it's doing?
>
>Alan Barnard
>Salem, Missouri

Watch out for that iron -- I find the results of a damp cloth and iron, let 
alone
a steam kettle, to be too strong and too fast. You don't want to overdo.

I use 100 proof vodka, or rather, an imitation of it. 190 proof generic ethyl
alcohol ("Clear Spring") cut half and half with tap water, in a plastic 
dropper
bottle. ("Don't leave home without it ...")

Be sure your isopropyl has nothing else in it. I think that sometimes it 
might have
oil as well as perfume, since it's used for massage.

If you use the right amount (only one drop per hammer in the high treble) 
you don't
need to use a hair dryer, and you should have a pretty reasonable idea what
you're getting after ten minutes or so. Sometimes the voicing of a couple 
of hammers still sticks out from their neighbors, and they may get a second 
drop. Never more than two. You
don't want to weaken the shoulder support, well, I don't, anyway. I just 
want to fluff up
the exact contact point. It's still the high treble, so it still needs some 
bite. I just
want a tiny little cushion on the sound. I sometimes wonder if the factory 
voicers have
lost hearing in the high register, from the noisy surroundings they work 
in. Or maybe
they're just afraid of people saying the top octave is too weak. So many 
people in the general public have lost hearing in the high end, and some of 
them buy pianos, of course.

Let me know if your mileage varies ...

Susan



> > [Original Message]
> > From: Susan Kline <skline@peak.org>
> > To: Pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org>
> > Date: 07/28/2005 7:55:06 PM
> > Subject: Re: Nobody Knows the Treble I've Seen ...
> >
> > At 05:30 PM 7/28/2005 -0500, Alan wrote:
> > >New Yamaha GA-1 (yurk): In addition to low treble from hell, the 6th and
> > >7th octaves are just screechers, wild and wooley. On the spectrograph,
> > >some of the individual strings have about 8 peaks each!
> >
> > Ah, but are they woolly? Or are they hardened within an inch of their
>lives?
> >
> > If you have permission to voice this Yamaha GA-1 (yurk) piano, and the
> > owner agrees that the treble is way too screechy, (some owners are deaf
>--
> > they might even like it) you might try what I do (given permission, etc.)
> > Pull out the little action, and give the top octave one small drop of
>vodka
> > directly into the grooves. I think you'll find the 8 peaks getting less
> > high and steep. Maybe you'll end up with 6 peaks, or 4, or something.
>I've
> > never metered the results except with my ears.
> >
> > Too little felt to needle up there, and anyway, it's all solid as a rock.
> > Vodka never broke a fiber yet. Besides, some owners enjoy the jokes.
>"Your
> > piano is just too _dry_. It needs a drink ..." etc. However, in the high
> > treble, it doesn't need a BIG drink, and it shouldn't get into the habit
>of
> > drinking.
> >
> > In octave 6, I'm more likely to work on the duplex (a little strip of
> > bushing cloth, a dab of gaffer's tape, even a drop of white glue ...)
>with
> > maybe a chopstick needle on a few string grooves, and a whole heap of
> > tweaking and beating in the unisons. But octave 7 usually carries a lot
> > more lacquer or *whatever it is.*
> >
> > Wearing alcohol-proof flamesuit ... thanks, Conrad, nice up to date
>fashion
> > statement ...
> >
> > Susan
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
>
>
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