WOW!! I saw GOLD PAINTED tuning pins!

[Dave Doremus]

On 7/27/06, Mark Schecter quoth:

>Hi, Phil.
>
>Might be the same idea as when harpsichord makers put a red punching 
>over every "A" tuning pin. I recently tuned a harpsichord made by 
>John Phillips of Berkeley which, instead of colored punchings, had 
>the pins staggered to correspond to the naturals and sharps


Hi Mark, that was a standard practice in many early instruments. 
Visually very attractive and makes it very easy to tune until the 
modern transposing keyboard catches you by surprise and you find 
yourself tuning the wrong string.......many makers will lay out the 
wrestplank at 415 or 392, whatever the lowest ('original') pitch was 
and just add or lose one or two notes at the top for the transposer. 
So you might find yourself a whole step off if you dont watch 
carefully.....BTW John Phillips is one of the very best, wonderful 
instruments.

Why would anyone paint the pins and strings gold? Ive seen so many of 
these and they are so bizarre I just cant fathom the idea or the 
effort required to do such a neat job. Not unlike a Mirror-piano :-0
-- 
----Dave


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Dave Doremus, RPT
New Orleans
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