[pianotech] Baldwin D String Rendering

Encore Pianos encorepianos at metrocast.net
Fri Nov 30 12:42:25 MST 2012


Hi Terry:

 

It certainly seems like a precursor to the SD-10, sharing the vertical hitch
pins and front treble termination bars (the difference being that your D has
a the termination bars as a single piece filling the whole treble section,
the SD-10 has the individual bars that can be adjusted forward or back).
But the function is essentially the same between the two.

 

The closest I can come to your instrument is a 1988 SF-10 with the treble
termination bars.  It suffered from rendering issues like yours, but was
also leaky and full of falseness.  Letting tension down on a string and
moving it to a side revealed significant grooving on the V portion.  I
priced a replacement set of termination bars from Gib-greed - they wanted
something like $1200 for a new set.  

 

What I did was let the tension down on the individual note, remove the coil
from the tuning pin, and pull it through the bar and out of the way.  Then I
took a strip of emery paper and reshaped both terminations - the V bar area
and the front termination seen in your picture.  I followed this with crocus
paper to polish it.  Then fed the wire back through, hitched it on the
tuning pin, tuned, etc. etc.  

 

I was fortunate to have on hand a number of termination bars from my time as
a dealer, and did replace a few that were too far gone to clean up well.  

 

The result was that the falseness disappeared and the wire would now tune
normally.  

 

This is awkward and uncomfortable work.  I spent the better part of two days
doing these tasks and the needed tuning.  I was performing the operations
with the bars in position on the plate.  Kiss your back and neck goodbye,
you will need transplants after you finish this job, if you don't decide to
put yourself out of your misery first.  

 

Thanks, Terry - I esteem you too.  J

 

Will Truitt

 

From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Terry Farrell
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2012 2:00 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: [pianotech] Baldwin D String Rendering

 

Dear esteemed colleagues:  I am tuning a 1968 Baldwin D grand (9') today and
am having quite a bit of trouble with string rendering in the two treble
sections. This piano has the unusual treble forward terminations that
Baldwin has used (pictured below) - I have heard of them before, but this is
the first one I've actually run across. I will be going back to the piano
later this afternoon to finish. I will be trying some Protek on the two
forward termination bars.

 

String rendering on the treble of this piano is very unusual. The treble was
a bit flat. First I nudge the tuning pin to turn and bring the pitch up just
a cent or two above target pitch. Then when I go to nudge the pin to lower
pitch to target, as I put pressure on the tuning lever to lower pitch the
pitch will actually rise about five cents before it starts going down. Same
thing if the pitch is a couple cents sharp - lower pitch just below target
and when you apply pressure to raise pitch to target, the pitch actually
drops five or so cents more flat before rising.

 

And then of course, after you think you have the pitch where you want it and
the pin is settled in a neutral position, the pitch goes five or more cents
sharp or flat.

 

This is not your typical Yamaha C3!

 

Does anyone have any other tips or tricks to offer a slightly frustrated
piano technician?

 

Anyone knowledgable on the evolution of large Baldwin grands? Where does the
model D fit in? Is it a precursor to the SD-10? Major differences? I see
this one has a fairly large straight upper bass soundboard cut-off bar.
Seems like a nice piano.

 

Thanks!

 

Terry Farrell

 



 

IMG_0358

 




IMG_0360

 

 

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