[pianotech] Toy piano scaling

[Noah Frere]

I recently saw a recital for 3 toy pianos as well. There was an electric
instrument I think in there as well. It was modern and minimalist, and quite
amazing actually.

On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 8:47 PM, Ryan Sowers <tunerryan at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've tuned a few toy pianos so here's my 2 cents worth...
> The best method I found to shorten the rod is to use a Dremmel with a
> cut-off wheel. Those tines are very hard - you won't get far with a file.
> The cut-off wheel allows you to cut a slice very neatly off the end of the
> rod.
>
> I've tried soldering to make the pitch go down but it can be difficult to
> get the solder to stick. What works really well is to make a small coil out
> of music wire that will fit snugly around the end of the tine. If it makes
> the pitch too low you can slide it up towards the base of the tine and it
> will cause the pitch to rise - kind of like tuning a Fender Rhodes.
>
> In fact, you can cut all the bars slightly short and add a coil to each one
> so that you can "fine" tune it by moving the coils.
>
> I had a client who was putting on a toy piano recital and asked me to tune
> 3 of them together! It was an interesting challenge. The harmonics are
> pretty wacky. They can sound surprisingly nice when their in tune! Most of
> the "tuning" done in the factory is haphazard at best. The older ones seem
> to sound better.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 2:35 PM, Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net> wrote:
>
>> David Doremus wrote:
>>
>>> This is off the wall and off topic but I thought I'd throw it out to the
>>> mathematical among us....
>>>
>>> I have toy piano for a long time customer who wants it to work for her
>>> granddaughter, several of the tines are broken. I have a friend who is a
>>> metal worker so making new ones is possible, the question is how to
>>> calculate the proper length without simple trial and error. Is there a
>>> formula or two for calculating the pitch of a steel rod? Any advice?
>>>
>>> --Dave
>>>
>>
>> I'd start with one a tad longer than the average of the one above, and the
>> one below, and grind to finished length. You can calculate all day long and
>> will end up doing that anyway.
>> Ron N
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Ryan Sowers, RPT
> Puget Sound Chapter
> Olympia, WA
> www.pianova.net
>
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