Claude, I've also had one break that way at a church where I was pianist years ago. Thankfully, any "body" was far enough away, no one got hurt! The nested pianos is something I'd never thought about that way before. When I was at the university (& other places), I've tuned many times with the pianos in that configuration. One other thing about that is that the piano one (or both) of them usually always has the lid removed. Wonder where the string might go in that case? Especially if they're in front of an orchestra! Avery Todd, RPT Houston, TX On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 11:26 PM, Claude Harding <charding88 at comcast.net>wrote: > 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 > > > ------------------------------ > > *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 <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 > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090418/391c736d/attachment-0001.html>
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