I have familiarity with this issue. I cut my teeth on a 1970 SD-10 which
had very difficult rendering in the
capo sections.
I did something a little like what Will did, only with less effort. I
didn't remove the coils from the tuning
pins, I just lowered pitch about an octave. Then I pulled the strings to
the side of each individual channel, and used strips of medium and then
fine emery cloth to shoe-shine the bottom of the curved main bearings.
(Then moved them to the other side, ditto.) There had been small
grooves in what looked like paint before I did this, and I saw a
metallic mirror-finish after I was done. I used a dental mirror and a
strong flashlight to look at the surfaces before and after. Even took
some close-up photos, which I have somewhere.
With the strings very slack, I pulled them out of the long curved
grooves in front of the bearings, and laid graphite from a 6B pencil
into the grooves. I didn't use Protek.
When I pulled the strings back up, the rendering was much smoother and
more controllable, and the jingling sizzling capo noises were much
better behaved. The piano continues (to this day) to be much more
tunable and stable, though I still give it some really heavy blows to be
sure it is settled. Once it is really settled, the tuning will stand up
to almost anything. One of my proudest moments was when Constantine
Orbelian rehearsed and then performed the Schnittke Concerto with the
Moscow Chamber Orchestra, and the tuning survived. ("Who me, worry?")
Thinking about it later, I realized that by slacking off the strings,
one side first, and then pulling them back up, other side first, it was
inevitable that the string's contact points on the capo bearing and
bridge pins were in new places. This simply because when one lets down
one side a long way, some wire works around the hitch pin -- obviously
it has to, since the pitch of the other side has dropped. Therefore the
flattened wire from years of going around bridge pins and under the main
bearing were moved to new places. The tone was a lot better.
I prefer dealing with the capo grooves and the rendering problems to
using a lot of gaffer's tape or little cloth tents in the capo section,
though I will use some. Better to not have the jingling sizzles too
loud, instead of having them and trying to muffle them. Some sizzle is
simply needed, one just wants uniformity and the right amount of it. The
piano is a lot bigger and the tone more free if one doesn't have to
over-muffle the capo and back lengths to get rid of obnoxious noises.
I wrote a Journal article about this process.
I found, when I first started struggling with concert stability tuning
this instrument, that instead of pulling past pitch and banging it back
down, it works a lot better to very slowly pull upward exactly to pitch,
with a lot of fairly hard blows on the way. Try to stop exactly at pitch.
Just my experience ... by the way, struggling successfully with this
piano got me very fond of it. It has a wonderful rich sound, a
scrumptious (one might even say noble) bronze bass where the tone simply
will not break no matter how hard it is played, and the action has been
very cooperative for regulation and playability. I overheard some
chamber players (on tour) talking about it as they were rehearsing --
"this piano has REAL SUBSTANCE."
Susan Kline
P.S. I didn't need to remove a single termination piece, thank heavens.
Encore Pianos wrote:
>
> 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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