Interesting Service Call

[Marcel Carey]

Mike,

Could it have been a dampp chaser wire buzzing on one or two bass strings? Maybe the customer opened the bottom panel to show her husband the system and when they closed it back some part of the system interfered with the strings?

Marcel Carey
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> I had a call from a customer regarding her Baldwin spinet, perhaps it's an Acrosonic by Baldwin  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. 
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