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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Hi Greg,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I've been there not too long ago with exactly the
same symptoms. Not one damper was obnoxiously leaking. I'm
sure you'll get more expert suggestions than my own, but here's my
story: </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>My customer, fortunately, didn't blame me or my
tuning. I did explain that since the piano is now in tune, vibrating
strings from one note will cause more sympathetic vibrations in others
notes. I silently held a bass note and played a few notes which were
harmonics to demonstrate. So, the increased bleedthrough becomes
the fault of a good tuning--not me.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I checked the obvious: damper follow through,
alignment, petrified dampers, spring tension, muting strings. It's
really hard to check if the hitch pin end of the damper is lifting first, or is,
in fact, seating at all (how do you easily do that someone???). I
found no problems. I decided to replace the dampers.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Upon installing new dampers (I really like
Spurlocks method but don't count on the bass strings being near coplanar), I
wondered if one end of the damper is near a node. Before gluing,
I observed that locating the new dampers at a different spot along the
speaking length of the string reduced the ringing of harmonics. It helped
considerably, and the customer was pleased. I still wonder if I should
have made new dampers that were a different length than the originals, but my R
& D budget has been surpassed. Let me know if you can answer
that question for me.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>(I would suppose that dampers dont' do a really
good job on longitudinal waves. Anyone care to comment?)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I hope some of this narrative helps.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Mark Ultsch, RPT</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Madison Chapter</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=jhjpiano@sbcglobal.net href="mailto:jhjpiano@sbcglobal.net">Jim
Johnson</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=pianotech@ptg.org
href="mailto:pianotech@ptg.org">Pianotech List</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, June 12, 2007 9:10
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: Client Care and Spinnet
Dampers: HELP!</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Don't think of what you have to do to make your
customer happy, think of what you must do to keep her from becoming an
unhappy customer who is potentially a very damaging liability to your
reputation. One unhappy customer can undo the good created by many happy
customers.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>You might want to bite the bullet and replace the
bass damper felts. If you are getting sympathetic leakage in the bass,
this could solve the problem. The bass damper felt may be overly
dense and not doing a very good job even though they seem to dampen ok when
played as individual notes.</FONT></DIV>
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style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=welltemperedtuning@yahoo.com
href="mailto:welltemperedtuning@yahoo.com">Geoffrey Arnold</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=pianotech@ptg.org
href="mailto:pianotech@ptg.org">pianotech@ptg.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, June 12, 2007 3:38
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Client Care and Spinnet
Dampers: HELP!</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">
<DIV><BR>Hi All,<BR><BR>Well it's deja vu for me. I thought I'd learned my
lesson the last time this happened. I get a call for a tuning and "pedal
repair". When I arrive the damper pedal rod is engaged but the pedal
regulated with so much play as never to reach damper lift. Easy fix,
regulate pedal, achieve damper lift. I then suddenly notice copious
bleedthrough. I point out the "echo" to the customer and say the dampers are
old and misaligned, and another technician must have sacrificed pedal play
for quieting the bleedthrough. I would leave it with pedal play, but if the
"echo" bothered her I would come back free of charge and try to minimize
it.<BR><BR>She does call, and I do return. This time I back the pedal all
the way to where it was when I first met the piano. At this point I have not
touched a single damper head, or damper wire. The damper lift rod is miles
from any damper lever, so all dampers are seated.And still the massive echo.
I neglected to play the piano before regulating the pedal on my very first
visit, so I don't recall if it had the bleedthrough then. But intellectually
I know, tuning the piano as I did, and pedal regulation could not have
caused this pervasive damper bleeding. I try to delicately approach the
issue, essentially inquiring "are you sure this echo wasn't there before"...
"no, I DEFINITELY would have noticed it, I can't even play it" and the
implied "what did you do to my piano!".... <BR>The one previous time I
reached this kind of exchange I stubbornly stuck to my intellectual
conclusion that anything I could have done during tuning would not have
affected the dampers this much, and if the client wants to remedy the ailing
dampers I would be happy to help but they'll have to pay for it. Now I am
hopefully a little wiser, and would like to keep my customers so I said
"don't worry, this is my problem not yours, I'm not done here until the
problem is fixed..."<BR><BR>Three hours later (of second visit to house),
every damper is seated. When I push each string, the damper follows, showing
me that it is bearing against the string, and there is sufficient tension if
the damper head follows. I strengthened each damper spring in the bass and
low tenor for good measure, requiring that I remove the spinnet action,
which is so much fun. I even tried needling a few offensive dampers. This is
a Baldwin Spinnet from the 60s. The dampers are a little compacted, but
nothing spilled on them, and not too hard or ratty. The real killer is that
with a slow chromatic check, no single note rings noticeably (play a note,
press hand against string, no change in echo). Laying a forearm across all
the strings in tenor does not change the echo. Nor a forearm across bass,
unless you really push, and then the echo does die. This for me is to assess
if it is indeed string noise, or soundboard/backscale noise, but its so loud
it must be string noise. If I play a forte f-major in the tenor, and arm
mute it, the echo sings loud. If I play same chord and arm mute the bass,
lower than the notes I played, it does significantly dampen the echo. This
is why I focused primarily on bass dampers. One or two of which I found
mildly offensive, but all at least dampen adequately.<BR><BR>I would like
advice on good upright damping. But also on this customer quandary, when you
reach a juncture where you as the technician feel certain the piano has a
chronic ailment that predated your ever meeting it, and the client feeling
you caused categorical damper failure just by tuning. Of course now, I have
removed the action, and replaced it, and bent many damper wires, so now my
actions really could have "caused" or at least worsened the problem
(although I did so methodically and with the intention of improving the
symptoms) I can no longer say, I never touched the dampers, not my fault.
How much free time to I give here, for a happy customer? How does one
establish professional expertise and trust, without saying "its not my
fault, so not my problem"?<BR><BR><BR>Thank you tuner support
group!<BR><BR>Greg Arnold<BR><SPAN><A
href="http://www.welltemperedtuning.com"
target=_blank>www.welltemperedtuning.com</A></SPAN><BR></DIV></DIV><BR>
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