Client Care and Spinnet Dampers: HELP!

[Dean May]

>>I try to delicately approach the issue, essentially inquiring "are you
sure this echo wasn't there before"...

 

This right here is the problem. If you approach the issue "delicately" you
are no longer in control, you are communicating uncertainty to the customer.
You are in effect telling them that you have some doubt that perhaps you
actually did cause the problem. 

 

You maybe could have headed the problem off a little better on the first
visit- which you sort of did. Perhaps you could have been a little more
assertive in telling her that the mechanism is adjusted where it should be
but there is still bleed through. You did good pointing out the old, hard
damper felt. But the next words out should have been, "if there is still a
problem the next logical step is to replace these very old damper felts. And
that still is not 100% guarantee that it will all go away, it will just make
it better. It is sometimes impossible to completely eliminate those
overtones on a spinet piano. This piano is 40 years old with original parts.
I told you I would try to minimize it. I have exhausted every trick in the
book to rejuvenate old felt. I have given you $120 now of free labor now to
try to resuscitate the old girl and that is as much free time as I can give
you on this piano. I have even consulted with other top piano techs from
around the world in our online discussion forum and they concur: there is
more that I can do, but it is going to involve replacing these old felts."

 

Sometimes when the felt is hard like that you can actually hear it buzz
against the string when you let the note up. This is a good test to show the
customer how hard the felt actually is. Explain how it is supposed to be
nice and soft to mute the string, but it is so hard it actually introduces
more noise. 

 

If you are intent on replacing the felt the problem is most likely coming
from the singles only. Even when they are hard the bicords usually do a
pretty effective job of dampening. 

Dean

Dean May             cell 812.239.3359 

PianoRebuilders.com   812.235.5272 

Terre Haute IN  47802

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----- Original Message ----- 

From: Geoffrey <mailto:welltemperedtuning at yahoo.com>  Arnold 

To: pianotech at ptg.org 

Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 3:38 PM

Subject: Client Care and Spinnet Dampers: HELP!

 


Hi All,

Well it's deja vu for me. I thought I'd learned my lesson the last time this
happened. I get a call for a tuning and "pedal repair". When I arrive the
damper pedal rod is engaged but the pedal regulated with so much play as
never to reach damper lift. Easy fix, regulate pedal, achieve damper lift. I
then suddenly notice copious bleedthrough. I point out the "echo" to the
customer and say the dampers are old and misaligned, and another technician
must have sacrificed pedal play for quieting the bleedthrough. I would leave
it with pedal play, but if the "echo" bothered her I would come back free of
charge and try to minimize it.

She does call, and I do return. This time I back the pedal all the way to
where it was when I first met the piano. At this point I have not touched a
single damper head, or damper wire. The damper lift rod is miles from any
damper lever, so all dampers are seated.And still the massive echo. I
neglected to play the piano before regulating the pedal on my very first
visit, so I don't recall if it had the bleedthrough then. But intellectually
I know, tuning the piano as I did, and pedal regulation could not have
caused this pervasive damper bleeding. I try to delicately approach the
issue, essentially inquiring "are you sure this echo wasn't there before"...
"no, I DEFINITELY would have noticed it, I can't even play it" and the
implied "what did you do to my piano!".... 
The one previous time I reached this kind of exchange I stubbornly stuck to
my intellectual conclusion that anything I could have done during tuning
would not have affected the dampers this much, and if the client wants to
remedy the ailing dampers I would be happy to help but they'll have to pay
for it. Now I am hopefully a little wiser, and would like to keep my
customers so I said "don't worry, this is my problem not yours, I'm not done
here until the problem is fixed..."

Three hours later (of second visit to house), every damper is seated. When I
push each string, the damper follows, showing me that it is bearing against
the string, and there is sufficient tension if the damper head follows. I
strengthened each damper spring in the bass and low tenor for good measure,
requiring that I remove the spinnet action, which is so much fun. I even
tried needling a few offensive dampers. This is a Baldwin Spinnet from the
60s. The dampers are a little compacted, but nothing spilled on them, and
not too hard or ratty. The real killer is that with a slow chromatic check,
no single note rings noticeably (play a note, press hand against string, no
change in echo). Laying a forearm across all the strings in tenor does not
change the echo. Nor a forearm across bass, unless you really push, and then
the echo does die. This for me is to assess if it is indeed string noise, or
soundboard/backscale noise, but its so loud it must be string noise. If I
play a forte f-major in the tenor, and arm mute it, the echo sings loud. If
I play same chord and arm mute the bass, lower than the notes I played, it
does significantly dampen the echo. This is why I focused primarily on bass
dampers. One or two of which I found mildly offensive, but all at least
dampen adequately.

I would like advice on good upright damping. But also on this customer
quandary, when you reach a juncture where you as the technician feel certain
the piano has a chronic ailment that predated your ever meeting it, and the
client feeling you caused categorical damper failure just by tuning. Of
course now, I have removed the action, and replaced it, and bent many damper
wires, so now my actions really could have "caused" or at least worsened the
problem (although I did so methodically and with the intention of improving
the symptoms) I can no longer say, I never touched the dampers, not my
fault. How much free time to I give here, for a happy customer? How does one
establish professional expertise and trust, without saying "its not my
fault, so not my problem"?


Thank you tuner support group!

Greg Arnold
www.welltemperedtuning.com

 


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