Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Why not using cheap tuning hammers?

He might be referring to the BKB tips from Germany. Very expensive, but considering the tip is the only point of contact with the wrest pin, there is much sense in investing in quality.

Oh in Germany they are now selling carbon tuning hammers with rosewood tips.

Since this looks like the sort of thread, though, may I ask a newbie question?

Just why do they call it a hammer, it's not a hammer, it's a wrench?

Carbon fiber hammers are nothing new. The handle is rosewood, not the tip. The tip is what goes on the pin, and it's made of steel.




Don't know. It bugs me, too. I usually just call it a "piano tuning thingy".

A 'ball peen' hammer with a socket tip on the other end was used back in the day. Turn the pin and tap it down with the peen hammer side. Here in modern times, most suppliers list them as 'Tuning Levers'.

But why did they turn the the hammer around and "tap it down?"

Early tuning pins were tapered and tapping them down was a way to seat the pin firmly in the hole and get it to stay where it was put.

Hence the tool was both a tuning lever and a hammer. Modern tuners refer to them by both names.

ddf

never seen a tapered early tuning pin, not on European pianos, in my limited experience.

but tapping a few mm allow to gain a little grip in new wood, while providing a few years of tuning, it also may lower the quality of the pin setting because the angle of the wire with the coil may be compromized (or the coils may finish touching the pinblock)

so this is a so so solution, while convenient, may be used with finesse and sometime the gain is minimal.

called "tamponnage des chevilles", or "tubage" in French

While this statement is somewhat laughable to professionals (someone called it a bluff), perhaps laypeople cannot entirely comprehend why. I submit this comparison:
"I bought a set of golf clubs online for $49.-. But I still can't shoot a hole in one. Is it me or the clubs?"

Further comments of mine would be: Congratulations on hearing that your tuning is not good (I am serious). This means your hearing ability is better than your tuning ability. This is the way it should be. Even good tuners walk away from their tunings with a sense that they have not quite achieved perfection. That is what allows us to incrementally improve our skills and abilities and our work in pursuit of excellence over a number of years, if not decades.

Most DIYers actually think their tunings are good because their hearing discernability is so limited that they simply cannot hear the out-of-tuneness. We have seen numerous video postings of such "tunings". For the most part, these pianos are about as out of tune (after "tuning") as the ones professional tuners sit down to tune.

One more thing: You ask if you are a bad tuner. No. You are not a tuner. Just as buying a stethoscope would not make you a health practitioner.

This is the single thing that I love the most about this job. The sense that, even after a succesful tuning, I know I could have done better. A wonderful insentive to continually improve!

My piano i 8 cent flat and my mobile tunelab software wants me to do a overpull of 2 cents, is that something i shuld trust on?

one may be a little masochist to be a tuner then.

or the "good enough" thinking begin to be prevalent.

Generally speaking one can know he have done the best he can under particular circumstances, but indeed no real standard exists in regard of tuning result.

because of ear fatigue it is difficult to correct a tuning while doing it, so often you hear in the end of the job that you could have do a part differently, sometime it is only the piano which settle in the new tuning.

taking a rest during tuning is the most useful thing. Concert tuning should be done in 2 parts the last (before concert) being better than the first. but this is highly theoretical..

Haha I'm not so sure about masochism but yes, we must be our own critics - coming to a final check and finding so many things out of place and correcting them. Reconsidering the tuning of some notes over the break or at the extreme ends, second-guessing oneself. Even when the final result is as good as it can be, there are always parts during the tuning process that I wish I could have solved quicker or been more confident in - one always has to keep moving and not obsess over individual notes, sometimes that has to happen before you're happy with that note. But we come back, we correct. It's fun

Most piano tuners (including concert tuners) have that "doubts".

This is due , to me, to the absence of "rule" to ascertain the level of sympathetic resonance the tuning is providing.

also the "overpull" is obtained by expercience and feel and it is not (in my experience) related to a precise technique, no real method to be sure of the amount of overpull used (at 4 cts there is yet clear settling, and all tuners tune "high", not "pure", with methods as pure 5th, pure 12ths, a certain amount of acceleration between 3d and tenth or tenth and 17th, or a software)

So you check your tuning once settled, and only feel and experience is ruling that light overpull.


add the temperature change at some point in the day and it is understandable that the final check show things we wigh to have obtained differently..

The main effect of the method provided by Alfredo is that it gives an etalon to the max resonance; this can serve as a reference, and it gives a lot of confidence to the tuner (even experienced concert tuners find the advantage there, as the last brick for a wall, as a definitive clearing of concepts that where a little unclear.)

If you are tuning the right string to the left string on a two string unison how do you know if the right string is sharp or flat?

You can lift the dampers and pluck the two strings of the unison. Often, one can hear which one is flat.

Or you can play the note and turn the tuning lever anti-clockwise. One of two things will happen:

1) If the beat speed increases, the right string was already flat. You have made it flatter, so you need to change the direction to clockwise.

2) If the beat speed decreases, it was sharp. You need to keep going anti-clockwise until the beat disappears.

You can tell by hearing it. Learning to tune takes hundreds of hours of dedicated study and specific ear training. Welcome to the learning curve.

Reiman~
A little tip...

If you are unsure whether the string you are tuning is sharp or flat relative to the reference string, always, always, make sure you gently lower the pitch of the string you are tuning. This also helps to ensure you are on the correct pin/string to begin with.

Jurgen, sounds like the BKB tip. I have one of these (#3). I like it better than the current Watanabes for sure (which I think are awful) and like it somewhat better than the Sole tip. I would like to compare it with Jahn tips, but my current Goss lever doesn't accommodate Jahn well.

I find the BKB a better fit than those other tips, but $100 better..not sure. But then again every time I change to a different tip I look forward to changing back to the BKB...I guess that says something...but its not a WOW kind of thing.

Jim Ialeggio

I'm slowly starting to share this opinion. The one on my Levitan is kind of loose, and it hasn't even gone through 300 tunings, yet.

Jurgen, that is solid gold.

There is absolutely no reason in the world other than gouging to charge well over $100 for a tuning tip. Even the slowest/most exacting/ most expensive manufacturing process (plunge EDM) on A2 quality air hardened alloy steel with top quality plating and QC follow up on this tiny item does not justify a cost like this.
The present faltering/declining economy of this former Euro giant does not justify a ridiculous cost like this it either
IMHO.