<HTML><HTML>List Everything I know about tuning square grands I learned from what I've read h= ere on the list.  Never having done it, and having a fondness for thin= gs ancient, I read most of the posts about square grands.  And from wh= at I've read, it's something you would do only when faced with a firing squa= d.  Why?  Because your back will be sore for days afterwards fro= m bending over the thing trying to reach the tuning pins and hit the key at = the same time.  Still...I was willing to have a sore back just to have the experience of wor= king on one.  Well, for those of you who haven't had the joy yet, let me say that it ain't= necessarily so.  I tuned my first square grand this week and it was f= un.  Yeah, I had to stretch a bit to reach the tuning pins but I used = my Schaff extension hammer and I really had to stand (or stoop over) the pia= no only to reach the top octave.  The other pins I could reach while s= itting at the bench.  (Stool, actually...) Maybe this was a small square, and thus was easier to reach the tuning pins.=   Then again, maybe some people are just whiners.  Maybe both! This square, a Hallet and Davis, was a charming piano with a quaint sound.&n= bsp; There were no trichords, even the steel treble strings were all bichor= ds, so the tuning went fast.  There were a few bass wound bichords tha= t were difficult (impossible) to tune a true unison on, but hey, I had the e= xact same experience with a Steinway 45" vertical today. Just thought I'd present a different viewpoint on the experience. Tom Sivak Chicago PTG Associate P.S. For the record, I'm 5'11", and am not built like an orangutan: my arm length= is proportional to my height!  (Just thought I'd cut a couple of joke= s in the bud.) </HTML>