Greg, We have nothing to fear but fear itself. IMO pulling up a piano a bit at a time will not change the outcome . I lube with protek at v-bar and pressure bar. Tighten plate screws where they are accessable.I drop pitch before pulling up the first time--then forget part way through and just jerk em'up. I base my method on the Coleman -Defebaugh anticipated drop pitch raise method from a class in the 1970's. Strip mute the entire tenor -treble. Tune Middle strings from tenor break up ,then right string to middle from top down,then left string to the other two from top down. Then two five minute passes pulling the bass strings up to pitch with no overshoot. In my experience them's thats gonna break are gonna break. (Strings that is ) First a !5 -20 minute pass with 20% overshoot. I usually won't go over 20-25 cents . (My own version of fear taking over) Then a second fast pass at pitch . Total time with lube- strip muting twice is 45-60 minutes and you end up with an out of tune piano that is right around pitch.I might go two months without a string breaking ,then have three in a week. The point is that by sneaking every piano up to pitch you spend many hours to avoid string breakage that may happen anyway . Best wishes and hope to see you at the chapter meeting next week, Tom Driscoll P.S. There has been a non guild Piana Toona in our area that had a practice of several consecutive days of tunings at full fee to get a piano to pitch. WOW !----- Original Message ----- From: Greg Livingston To: Pianotech list Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 11:58 PM Subject: [pianotech] Catastrophic Events While Tuning... Dear Friends, I have often wondered about this. What terrible disasters can happen during a tuning? Today I pitch-raised a neglected Baldwin studio, and it creaked and groaned for the two hours it took me to wrestle it into stability. I was expecting unforseen disasters at every turn of the hammer. Have you ever had bridge pins snap or bridges crack, or (God forbid) a tuning pin snap off? What is the worst that has happened to you, and do you carry insurance to protect you? Once, at one of my first chapter meetings after I joined the PTG, a well-respected local tuner told me to crank all pianos up to 440 no matter how flat they are. Well, I do that to pianos of recent manufacture with unrusted strings, but for WW1 era sleds I drag them up gradually over several tunings. (It gives me a chance to use my 435 fork.) I guess it all depends on the situation. ___________________________________________________ Gregory P. Livingston, Piano Tuning and Service 781-237-9178 Piano Technicians Guild, associate member (Boston chapter) "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." We are constantly reminded of the first part, but somehow the second part gets overlooked. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your inbox. See how. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100515/7a0106f2/attachment.htm>
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