[pianotech] Tuning dangers (was Brands prone to breaking plates)

[Claude Harding]

Kerry,
  I've had a couple of bass strings break like that.  I usually lower the
lid when I tune the bass section, especially if there is anything precious
or expensive in harm's way.
 I also wonder about the danger duo pianists might be in while playing
"nested" grands in concert.  The pianists in this set-up are often in the
direct "line of fire" if a bass string were to break.
Claude Harding

  _____  

From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Kerry
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 8:43 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: [pianotech] Tuning dangers (was Brands prone to breaking plates)



That reminds me of an incident when I was tuning a Baldwin SD-10 for a
visiting artist at a local college. I had the lid up, and one of the low
single bass strings broke at the pin and shot out the back of the piano and
flew over 40 feet like it was fired from a gun. Fortunately all it hit was a
heavy curtain. I've never had one fly out of the piano again, but needless
to say I'm very careful about having anyone behind the piano when I'm
tuning!

 

Kerry Kean

 

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From: John Ross [mailto:jrpiano at win.eastlink.ca] 
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 7:11 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Brands prone to breaking plates

 

The plate that broke for me, was due to pinblock separation.

I was just new in the business, only instruction, an inferior correspondence
course.

In the 70's tuners around here would not help as they were thinking you
would be their competition. 

I hadn't joined the Guild, or started going to conventions, so my knowledge
was minimal.

The piano was away down in pitch. Now I would look for the signs of the
separation, as indicated in previous posts.

The strings were vibrating against the plate on hard playing. 

I, naively thought, that when I brought it up to pitch, it would push the
soundboard and strings away from the plate. 

It kept on slipping back in pitch as I was taking it up, and suddenly, BANG.
I nearly had a heart attack, my heart beat went away up.

Now I check if the pitch is down a large amount, and inform the customer of
the possibilities.

Another tuner told me a plate broke on him, and a piece of the plate went
through his pant leg. If it had been a little closer, it would have
shattered his leg.

John Ross

Windsor, Nova Scotia

                  

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

From: Andrew Remillard <mailto:anrpiano at gmail.com>  

To: pianotech at ptg.org 

Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 5:42 PM

Subject: Re: [pianotech] Brands prone to breaking plates

 


Back to the list. 

 

J. Bauer open face  1910's

Bechstein same period

Weber 11910's open face

 

I am starting to see a pattern here. I have found four different type of
harp breaks. The open face harps tend to have too little iron through the
pin field and fail often across what little strut material they have.

 

Struts often break because of poor factory setting, improper "rebuilding",
and tooners who have strange notions about using nose bolts to adjust
voicing. (I am not making this up!)

 

Pin field failure. Since the stress here shouldn't be that severe I would
imagine most are caused by casting problems or a very poorly fit pin block
which led to more pressure on the harp from the tuning pins than should have
been present.

 

And the finale one is the treble hitch pin field breaking off. This tends to
be the loudest and most frightening. I had this happen once while tuning a
spinet. I had just pulled my head up from looking at something under the key
bed when it happened. As others have said, it does get your attention.
-- 
Andrew Remillard
ANRPiano.com
2211 Curtiss St.
Downers Grove, IL  60515
630-852-5058

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