Funny! Cute story. Lucky you! :) From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Michael Magness Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 8:07 PM To: Pianotech List Subject: [pianotech] My "3 Kimball Day" easily trumps Winter spinets I recently had new piano teacher, new to me, I hadn't tuned for her or heard of her before, call and ask if I would come to her town about 30 miles away and tune her piano if she arranged for a couple of her students and her church piano to be tuned as well. All should understand that I go to small towns like this frequently, usually scheduling my own day so when she offered to schedule a day for me it didn't require any arm-twisting. On the appointed day I arrived at her home to find her Kimball studio, pre-furniture company era, it had been her mothers, with the Kimball version of Billings flanges, several of the hammer butt bushings were loose, some to the point of the hammers flagpoling wildly. I tuned it, fixed what time would allow and what was most necessary and arranged to return for more serious repair. She directed me to the church which had a used grand that had been donated by a member who had purchased a newer, better grand. My alarm bells were jangling, she asked me to check the D above middle C as it didn't play very loudly. My alarm bells were right, the "grand" was Kimball LaPetite, prior to them naming them that, complete with that horrible compact U3 Pratt Read action with the "floating" repitition spring! The D was so quiet because it was striking 1 of the 3 strings with a letoff of about an inch or more. I removed all of the 12 or 14 screws required to remove the action at which point the accumulated dust, dirt, dead flowers, guitar picks, etc, etc. from about 30 years came sliding out with the action. I repositioned the hammer after reshaping it, adjusted the letoff not to spec since it then would have been too loud, put the action back in and tuned it. Prior to leaving her home she had given me a map to the 3rd home, the 4th had dropped out so I only had 3 for the day, because she was leaving and the last people weren't going to be home until after 3. I headed for their home and found it, country folks give great directions, the husband was there and showed me in to the Kimball spinet. It had a seperation in the back structure extending from the treble all the way to the end of the tenor section and some minor seperations in the pinblock. It was 1/2 tone flat in places and more in others. It had at minimum 3/4" of dip and more although the keys looked remarkably level. I gave him an estimate to bolt it back together level and dip keys and tune it 2 maybe 3 times, he heats with wood, it was almost 75 degrees inside the house. He asked how soon I could do it. I tuned the Kimball spinet the second tuning today, it's already bolted, keys leveled & dipped, it will need a 3rd tuningin about 3 weeks. The teacher is waiting until after Christmas for the rebushing work. They haven't asked about anything else on the grand and I'm not offering, 'cept maybe a match! (grin) Mike -- I intend to live forever. So far, so good. Steven Wright Michael Magness Magness Piano Service 608-786-4404 www.IFixPianos.com email mike at ifixpianos.com _____ avast! Antivirus <http://www.avast.com> : Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 091222-0, 12/22/2009 Tested on: 12/21/2009 10:13:35 PM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091221/ed65a7c6/attachment.htm>
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