Interesting Service Call

[Michael Magness]

I had a call from a customer regarding her Baldwin spinet, perhaps it's an
Acrosonic by Baldwin <g> I get them confused! Anyway she said the octave
below middle C was making some noises, not all of the notes just some. I had
been there a week or so before Christmas and tuned it after installing a
dehumidifing system about 3 weeks prior. Their house is humid 365 days a
year they run a dehumidifier in the basement year round and the RH still
runs 40% or higher most of the time on the coldest days. Yesterday it was 1
degree and it was 44%. We are in Southwestern Wisconsin and have been having
some cold weather below zero and wind chills in the 30 and 40 below range.
When I arrived I moved the piano out from the wall, it's one of those one
piece top and music desc jobs with the fixed music rack and started checking
things. It sounded like a loose rib or bridge rattle but there were no
cracks in the sound board and the ribs were all tight. I removed the kick
board and using my favorite piano tool that isn't one(a piano tool). I took
out my nail set placed it on the bridge pin of one of the offending notes
and tapped it to make cetain it was tight in the hole. I did the same to the
other three( it was a wound 2 string unison) I played it and the rattle was
gone! I moved on to the others and did the same and the problem was solved.
I called the customer in and asked her to play the piano and see what she
thought, she was pleased, although she did say she had been a little fearful
when she heard me "hammering" on her piano. I didn't use a hammer just the
flat side of my pliers on the nail set, I don't carry a hammer in my regular
tool kit.
My thoughts are that when I tuned the piano it was still alittle sharp and I
had to lower it to pitch and the Dampp Chaser had probably dried it to some
extent but not as dry as it got with our extended cold weather and the help
of the furnace running more often. It has been my experience that Dampp
Chasers don't work as well "retroactively as they do with a "running" start.
In other words if the piano is already dry it will keep it dry but if it is
in a constantly humid environment it has difficulty drying it down to the
42% it should be at. If it's covered or dried out in some other way then the
DC can maintain the optimum % more easily.
So when the piano fully dried down the bridge pins weren't tightly placed in
the holes due to the wood having been swollen from humidity so I "re-seated"
them, alleviating the problem.

Mike

-- 
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Michael Magness
Magness Piano Service
608-786-4404
www.IFixPianos.com
email mike at ifixpianos.com
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