Indeed Terry, I suggested that we leave the cracks as they are for now, and see whether anything happens. I was just thinking ahead, lest they prove to be progressive, as the client did seem to want to do something about them. Why didn't I bring it up to pitch? Well, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the whole venture with this piano was somewhat exploratory. It had sat for some forty years without tuning, in a damp dank house unoccupied for a chunk of that time. It had been decanted into storage, then brought back into a house newly restored, warm and dry, wtih underfloor heating. The action centres were very sluggish with many in the treble not working at all. Normally I would advise abandoning such an old piano and getting a new one, but the owner had a real attachment to it as part of a house he spent his summers in as a child, and he wanted the piano to be part of the renovation of the house. Plus he sent me pics in advance and I was rather taken with the decent condition of the case, complete with candle sconces (usually long gone). Plus the piano is overstrung and with some signs of quality. Plus the owner had read all the strictures on my website about birdcage pianos! The location is two hours away from me, and I spent quite a while getting the action working, applying Protek CLP to every action centre. It's a tape check action, but with unusual jacks which have no heels, and are pushed into the hammer butt notch not by a coil jack springs but by springs like hammer butt return springs, with tails fixed into the jack flanges. Happily, only one was broken. Naturally the tail was rusted solid in the flange so I had to drill a new hole in the flange, and fit an adapted hammer return spring. Work on the action took a while, and when I began to tune, I had little idea of how the pinblock would be, overall. The client at this stage was keen just to have the piano working in some fashion if possible. I deemed it best just to go for an average of where the piano was at, partly to assess the feel of the pinblock, and partly due to time availability. I did not want to drive over unlit single-track country roads in the dead of night and risk missing the last ferry, now on winter timetable. Another factor affecting length of tuning time was the oblong tuning pins, and the frequently encountered dreadful design where the overdamper rail partly obscures quite a few of the bottom row of tuning pins (with bruising on the wood where tuners of yesteryear had fought to seat the tuning lever on the pins). Having now gotten the action working, and established that the piano is tunable (to the client's delight), I would be happy now to consider a future pitch raise, especially once we see how the piano settles in its now-dry home. I was pleased with the lack of rust on the strings and they way they rendered over bearing points. Best regards, David. On 05/11/2012 16:32, pianotech-request at ptg.org wrote: > Are the cracks causing any problems? You mentions tuning pin torque is > okay. If not causing problems, why do anything? It's impossible to > tell for sure exactly how the cracks may have affected the integrity > of the block, so I would recommend to pull the piano up to pitch and > observe it over time. It's probably just fine. I'd question how well > epoxy will even work as you have no idea how clean the edges of the > cracks are. If it is a hide glue joint coming apart - how well does > 140 year old hide glue adhere to epoxy? > > Just curious - why did you tune it 300 cents flat? Why not bring it up? > > Terry Farrell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121105/e3917e8c/attachment-0001.htm> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 1.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 137217 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121105/e3917e8c/attachment-0003.jpg> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 147025 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121105/e3917e8c/attachment-0004.jpg> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 3.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 133591 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121105/e3917e8c/attachment-0005.jpg>
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