So anyway, Today I went back to the old overdamper piano in the house with in-floor heating (on which, thanks for everyone's comments; very helpful). At the beginning of November I had spent some time getting the action working, and achieving some semblance of a tuning, after forty years of neglet and no tuning, latterly in a damp moldering unoccupied house. The owner had said in an email that after that first session, it quite quickly went out of tune by a semitone at the ends. In point of fact, when I went back today, I found that it had not done that at all. What I think had happened was a psychological effect. Last time, when I finished tuning and played a tune, the guy was quite moved and couldn't speak for a moment, because this was a piano from his boyhood holidays in his great-aunt's house, and it had not been tuned or played for decades. SO, I think the emotional effect, was to make him think it sounded better than it actually did. When that emotional effect wore off, he perceived the piano as having dropped. That's my theory anyway, a 'psycho-acoustic' effect. I found in fact that, while the unisons had certainly gone a bit fruity, there was no large overall change, and no section that had markedly dropped. So today I did a proper pitch raise. I thought to aim for A440, and the tenor and treble would have taken it, but I immediately perceived when I started on the covered strings, that it was too risky; there was that feeling of "tautness" and the first bichord string broke. Thin-looking core wire too. Reflecting that the piano may well have been made for A435, that's what I opted for, and the piano went there quite happily (Proceeding with due caution and due Protek CLP on rusty bearing points). Time will tell as to how the tuning lasts, but the (obling dammit) pins were quite tight. I did however rebel at the overdamper rail overlapping half a dozen tuning pins, and filed grooves with a rasp I took for that purpose. This piano cannot ever have had those notes adequately tuned in its life, for I doubt if any tuiner ever took off the overdaper rail and strip muted, and using the tuning lever tip to lever the rail down makes it impossible to set the pin properly. What I did admittedly wasn't pretty, but it worked. The overdamper action has jacks with no heels. As on the last visit, I had to replace one of the springs, a previous replacement that wasn't working. Some pics attached. Best regards, David. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121221/bb57bff7/attachment-0001.htm> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Jack without heel, broken spring.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 119762 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121221/bb57bff7/attachment-0005.jpg> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Jack without heel, new spring.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 153232 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121221/bb57bff7/attachment-0006.jpg> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Notched overdamper rail.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 158588 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121221/bb57bff7/attachment-0007.jpg> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: piano - low res.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 171903 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121221/bb57bff7/attachment-0008.jpg> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: View from front garden.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 113792 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121221/bb57bff7/attachment-0009.jpg>
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