[pianotech] Was high and outside: now bearing point lubrication.

[Elwood Doss]

I use the same liquid and almost never break a string, even with very rusty strings.  What I've found, and I'm an aural tuner, is that no matter how much overpull I begin the pitch raise in the temperament octave by the time I get to the high treble I am actually pulling it up to pitch.   Here's what I did on a 63 year old Acrosonic spinet that hadn't been tuned in 61 years.  The A4 was around 120 cents flat and the high treble was around 220 cents flat.  I am strictly an aural tuner:

I always strip mute the whole piano, except for the treble damper section.  In this case I pulled A4 30 cents sharp and tuned the temperament octave to that pitch.  I tune the center strings and, leaving the strip mute in, pull up the outside strings using the same amount of movement as I did on the center string.  Of course the only purpose is to raise the tension on all the strings a similar amount-I can hear, through the strip mute when the outside strings are approximately up to pitch.  I can do that fairly quickly.  I pull the bass about ½ beat to a beat sharp.  By this time my starting A has dropped approximately 15 cents.  As I move into the treble I will pull the mid treble about 1 beat sharp.  By the time I reach the high treble the temperament octave is close to pitch, and no more than 10 cents flat.  The high treble, tuning it to approximate the pitch of the temperament octave (remember this is down and dirty tuning) is nearly on pitch.  I'm then ready for a fine tune (I use that term loosely in this case) and I find that I can get a decent tuning out of two passes.  I usually suggest a retune in 6 months and the piano will be quite stable after that.

Two comments:  this is a piano that is being used by a beginning piano student so does not require being spot on perfect.  After all they have been listening to a piano that is wildly out of tune.  They are amazed that I can get it "sounding so good!"  If this were a good pianist I would hope that the piano would be in better shape.  I always caution the customer that it will go out of tune fairly quickly as the strings, pins and bearing points attempt to reach an equilibrium. Second, time is not a big issue with me.  It's the challenge of beginning with one note and tuning the whole piano from that one starting note, using my hearing and accumulated knowledge that brings me satisfaction and joy.

Everyone has his/her own way of doing things that work for him/her.  This is the way I've done it for years on all types of old pianos and it works for me.

Joy!
Elwood

Rev. Elwood Doss, Jr., M. Mus. Ed., RPT
Piano Technician/Technical Director
Department of Music
355 Clement Hall
University of Tennessee at Martin
Martin, TN 38237
Office: 731/881-1852
Fax: 731/881-7415
Cell: 731/479-4043

From: Euphonious Thumpe [mailto:lclgcnp at yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2012 9:07 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Was high and outside: now bearing point lubrication.

A TINY bit of lubrication at all bearing points (except bridge of course) makes for an easier, more stable,
less breakage-prone tune. I've used Protek center pin lubricant in a medical hypo with the plunger VERY lightly pressed, dragged along such points, but was wondering what others might deem safe?

Thumpe


________________________________
From: Jason Kanter <jkanter at rollingball.com<mailto:jkanter at rollingball.com>>;
To: <pianotech at ptg.org<mailto:pianotech at ptg.org>>;
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Was high and outside now silent pitch lowering
Sent: Thu, Nov 1, 2012 11:16:56 PM
Joe Goss's "Goose Juice" is very useful for easing rusty strings over crusty felt. This will reduce string breakage.

Jason Kanter
On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 12:24 PM, Terry Farrell <mfarrel2 at tampabay.rr.com<javascript:return>> wrote:
Yes, strings can break. You take precautions to minimize the chance. And then you raise pitch. On a 100 year old piano, I'll be hesitant to go with more than 30 cents or so overpull in the high treble.

I do a lot of pitch raises, and among 60-cent pitch raises on 100 or so year old pianos, I'd say that better than 90 percent are done without strings breaking. Sometimes you'll have one or two break, and sometimes they all just start popping - but not often.

I had a 1900 Everett grand in original worn & rusted to the nub condition in my shop a couple years ago. Just for fun I wrenched on a good number of tuning pins with the AccuTuner on to measure how high I could pull strings sharp before breaking. On this particular piano, in the tenor and treble, I was able to pull all of them 100 cents sharp without breaking and many went 200 cents without breaking. None made it to 300 cents.

If they break, and you lower pitch prior to pulling it up, then the string was weak to begin with - or the scale was horrible.

And anyway, starting about this time of year, it's too cold in Winnipeg to do anything anyway! Eat a big meal and hibernate until spring breaks!  ;-)

Terry Farrell

On Nov 1, 2012, at 3:08 PM, Carl wrote:

> I've been reading many, not all, of these (high and outside) posts for a couple of weeks now, and only
> one fellow brought up the possibility of broken strings on pitch raises. I 've had many pitch raise
> needs and always  worry about the possibility of breakeage.  I'm aware that a piano 10 or 15 years
> old can be raised without much worry, but many are considerably older, and look and feel like all
> the strings might break with an even 10 cent raise.  That's likely an exageration, but all you need is
> one string to break, and this adds considerable time to a tuning, plus other factors , such as cost
> for the extra work .  ????????
>
> CT  - Winnipeg.



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jason's cell 425 830 1561


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