<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; color: rgb(127, 127, 127); "><b>From:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; ">"Leslie Bartlett" <<a href="mailto:l-bartlett@sbcglobal.net" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">l-bartlett@sbcglobal.net</a>><br></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; color: rgb(127, 127, 127); "><b>Date:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; ">September 8, 2011 6:34:47 PM EDT<br></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#7f7f7f"><b><br></b></font></div><div class="Section1" style="font-weight: normal; page: Section1; "><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Arial"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; ">I’ve been tuning a C6 for 7 years or more, and it has every time been h*** to tune, and a 3-hour job. Nothing will stay stable. I’ve been doing it every two months now for awhile and today was the second time I didn’t have to go through each string on second pass. Is it possible that the agraffes have been ground so sharply that one can’t get a stable termination point?.....</span></font></div></div></span></blockquote><br></div><div>Hi Les,</div><div><br></div><div>I would be very surprised if the agraffes are the problem.</div><div><br></div><div>Have you checked the plate flange/block fit with a mirror, a flashlight, and a feeler gauge? If you don't have a set of feeler gauges at hand, you can us paper, of course. What you would be looking for is a fairly consistent gap between the plate and the flange in either the bass or the treble (which would allow the pinblock to rock as you added tension to one side or the other; a touching section the tenor flange/block interface would act as a pivot).</div><div><br></div><div>I will be somewhat surprised also if that turns out to be the problem, as most C6 pianos I service seem to be fairly carefully constructed. However, it is certainly something to check.</div><div><br></div><div>The tenor on some C6 pianos does seem to move more than average with changes in humidity. I have half-assumed that this was because those tenor strings were at a lower percentage of their breaking point than average (for tenor strings), but I have not scaled or rescaled one, so this is just speculation. In any case, I do quickly knock down (or lift up) the tenor of the C6 with a very fast pitch adjustment before tuning. If you are able to float the pitch a bit (measure the pitch of about the third-highest bichord, and then tune the rest of the piano to that pitch), you may be able to safely get away with just moving the tenor and then doing one pass at the floated pitch. That might save you some time.</div><div><br></div><div>Joe DeFazio</div><div>Pittsburgh</div></body></html>