[pianotech] Subject: Broken plate

[Chuck Behm]

It happened to me today,

This sound I will never forget.

This was a very small piano, built in the 60's (Willis La Ronde)

The lady stayed throughout most of the pitchraise (almost one semitone)
telling me the stories of her childhood as child musician, very touching
stories indeed that made the break so much more dramatic.

I was done! 3 top notes left on this second pass. One string had broken
earlier.

We did not "really" cry. I sat on the floor for 10 minutes as she found
positive angles to this happening. She will get a new, better piano.... we
will not have to replace the broken string... some detachment must be in
order...

Allan Sutton

Allan - You may at least feel fortunate that the customer was right there
when it happened and was witness to the fact that it just broke - that you
didn't break it (there is a difference in those two perceptions).
It's only happened to me once, also on a pitch raise followed by a tuning,
and thankfully I had forewarned the customer (who had just purchased the
piano used) about the possibility. I had noticed a hairline crack in the
plate before I began work, I had pointed it out to the customer, and told
her that it could very well not hold the additional tension. Her feeling was
that she intended to use the piano to accompany soloists (she was a junior
high band instructor) and that if it wasn't up to pitch, it wasn't much good
to her. We decided that we would give it a shot, and try to bring it up.
    The ironic thing was that I had already pitched it up, and was going
back through with a second pass, tuning it. Most of the notes were still 5 -
10 cents flat, since I hadn't stretched it up as far over pitch as I usually
would, with the hairline crack in mind.
     Midway through the tuning, the plate sheared at the crack, with a noise
I would compare to a clap of thunder heard at a distance of 2 feet. The
woman, thinking someone had been shot, came flying down the from the second
floor screaming in concern, to find me sitting at the piano bench, tuning
lever in hand, looking a bit glazed over.
     Thank God, I had seen the crack and had warned her ahead of time of the
risk. She was not upset with me, but concerned that my hearing was still
okay, and that I wasn't injured. I helped her out by finding a really good
deal on another piano of better quality, and threw in a free tuning, just
because she had been so nice about the whole thing.
    In hindsight, I probably should have declined to tune the piano.  Chuck
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