Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum So, what did you do today?

I wrote my 2,000th post!

LOL, nice, Bill. But you're still waay behind Jerry and BDB (see above).

I've been slacking on this topic lately, but today was a good day. Drove out into the Redwoods in La Honda to tune a Bohemia 132 upright and then a little ways further out into the boonies, did a Steinway B, both of them requiring a pitch raise.

Back to the city, did a really old Schiedmayer from Germany, made in 1885 or so according to Pierce. I also did a rough damper regulation on this one. Doing a fine damper reg on this would take some time because the wires bind in the blocks and won't slide freely when the screw is loosened. They need some gravity to get them to budge at all.

Then a Kawai Rx 2 for a regular client, easiest job of the day. Last but not least, a Steinway D for a school/church on top of a hill. Interesting day. Good thing I brought home the bacon today, because yesterday I was illin'! Had to reschedule everything.

Hmmm, average 7 paragraphs per post, 7 sentences per paragraph, 7 words per sentence, and 7 letters per word....

Posts, paragraphs, sentences, words, letters, how many went to St Ives?

I'm teasing a bit, and I realize that many of Bill's posts are in the magazine article range in length and content, so there ought to be a multiplier for that

Well, I completed the tunings at my college, what tunings needed to be done at this time anyway. A total of 73 plus a boat load of repairs, broken wires, sticking keys, regulation problems, etc., the typical college stuff. Plus, I tuned quite a few other pianos in the past month as well.

Yesterday, I tuned a very nice Steinway B in the morning in a home then, I looked at a Samick console that hadn't been tuned in at least 7 years. Bobbling hammers, terrible regulation problems, loose screws galore. Gave an estimate, they want the work down and so, will schedule that for next summer.

After that, I went to my college again and did a concert tuning on one of our D's. Then I repaired the knob on an artist bench, the allen screw came loose on it and so it was just twisting without turning the bench up or down. Next, I replaced a broken wire on another B, touched up a string on the same piano that I had replaced earlier in the month. Then, I replaced a bass wire on another piano elsewhere on campus, fixed some sticking keys on a Yamaha GB1, a dinky grand (I don't like it much) and fixed a squeaking pedal on it.

Odd too. When you pushed the sustaining pedal all by itself, it wouldn't squeak. Yet, when you played the Disklavier unit, it squeaked like mad! So, I finally found that, cleaned and lubed it and it seems to be okay now. I was pooped yesterday when I was finished but, I got it done!

Started a regulation job on a S&S A.

Tuned an old Grinnell upright this morning, pretty nice sounding piano. Was tuned by a local tech here 2 years ago, 1/2 tone flat. The jerk. I raised it up to pitch, left her an estimate for work needed and scheduled it this evening for June.

Next, I tuned a Young Chang grand. This one too, was 1/2 tone flat. Raised it to pitch, it tuned pretty well considering, changed the chaser wicks and went and ate lunch.

Next, I tuned a Grinnell console, a not so nice little piano, one of the newer Grinnells shortly before they went out of business...

Then, I went over to my college and worked on a bunch of benches that were loose. From artist benches to normal ones. Then, I took the wife out to dinner for Valentines Day. AND, I also bought her flowers. Been married to that great woman for 32 years on March 10!

7 tunings today. Started off with a Kimball spinet that was about 30 cents flat. 440'd it. Next was a fairly nice Steinway M. 30-40 cents flat seems to be the norm around here this time of year. Those two were in private homes.

From there, off to an elementary school for a 60's vintage blonde colored Hamilton and an Everett console. After those two, off to yet another elementary school for a pair of old consoles (Kimball, Story & Clark). After those were done, went to another home where there was an old, refinished, unnamed grand. Nothing on the plate or soundboard.

First job was a no-show...I shoulda called, it was booked 3 months ago. But the number had been disconnected. Not a good start for the week.

A Kawai K-5, no pr, nothing but tuning. I like pianos that get serviced regularly!

An old Steinway V from about 1910. What a sweet piano. Great model, wish they still made it.

A Yamaha 500m console that needed a mild pitch adjustment and tuning. This was one I managed to reschedule to today in place of the no-show. Sometimes ya get lucky!

A Kawai RX-2 that I tune every 6 mos. or so. No creaks, squeaks, clicks, or pedal adjustments. It's settled in just fine. These are about as easy a piano to tune as you can get.

Burnished a damper guide rail bushing with teflon powder to get rid of a hanger on a Wurlick (Wurlitzer by Samick).

The real kicker was getting home and finding a package that contained thank you cards--complete with designs on the fronts and little pics of the 5th grade kids inside--expressing gratitude for a pro bono job I did on their old Yammie P-2 in January. Not much money in their budget for music, sadly. It was a really moving gift from the class.

Steinway still makes the V in Hamburg. I agree it is a great piano.

I wonder why they don't make it here any more. It's much more appealing than either the K 52 or the 45 inch studio.

Tuned a very nice Schimmel grand, about 5'8".

Tuned a Steinway grand from "hamburg" Germany. Sorry, that's the first thing I think of... Foooood. Beautiful piano. I've tuned it since it was new. Did some voicing on it today too, it was becoming quite brilliant and nasty sounding...

3rd and final tuning, arrived 30 minutes early, nobody home. Left 40 minutes later, still nobody home.... Dangnabitall! The ONE time I did not call the night before and I get a no show!!

Hmmm makes me wonder if that ol' Grinell was my Gramdma's piano! It was given away years ago and I am not sure of it's exact location now but it came from Monroe MI. Do you see very many old Grinnell's around there? My grandma's piano was the first piano I cracked open and took the action out of! the poor ol' thing had i don't know how many broken hammer shanks or non working notes there were!

Daniel

I repaired a broken leg on an 70's Baldwin were someone must have rolled the piano over a threshold and caught the caster:-(

https://picasaweb.google.com/meadpi...1t7o8RpQbDXDpJ43-oDg#5574120192770033042

Long lost was the caster so I get to take a new set from schaff and install them tomorrow!

Poor piano is 14 cents flat too!

Hi Daniel,

Grinnell was made in Detroit Michigan so yes, we see an awful lot of these pianos around here.

Hard to tell but, the lady said it's been in her family since she was a kid and said that was 54 years ago...

I was thinking that's were they were made...couldn't remember for sure!

Thanks for reminiscing with me! lol

Oh, you're welcome. My dad owned an old Grinnell upright too when I was growing up. His dad used to sell them at the local dealership here in downtown Grand Rapids. For years as I was growing up, I could see the name stenciled on the side of the building "Grinnell Bros." They have since redone the building and removed that. To bad.... I liked seeing that.

Congrats on 32 years Jer!! You're making Jean and I feeling like newlyweds after only 21 years!!

Today was a shop day for me. I'm finishing up the regulation on a 1966 Yamaha console that I picked up a few weeks ago and Jean is working on her project piano - a 1931 48" Baldwin Howard. I'm proud of the progress she is making! We did an experiment on the hammers. I have found that old hammers (even if they are not too worn out) have felt that is dry and brittle and will tend to develop string cuts fairly quickly. This is the second time I've tried this approach. I steamed the heck out of them and then followed that with a good soaking with 50/50 alcohol and water. After they dried they were followed by about a 7:1 lacquer/acetone solution that brought the tone up and then chased that with strait acetone to take the edge off.

My concept is that the lacquer seems to strengthen the old felt fibers and keep them from breaking down as quickly. It also makes the hammers file nicer. But it seems to work better if you soften the hammers first - basically making them a bit like a raw Steinway hammer. So far, on the test notes I got very satisfactory results. Jean will finish the reshaping tomorrow and fit the hammers to the strings and then I will help her with the voicing to even things out. This is an "econo" piano that she's hoping to sell for around $1500. It should be a sweet little studio piano when she's done.

At 1pm I had the pleasure of going in for a root canal! I'd been putting it off for years. $1250 and an hour later, I was amazed at how reasonably pain-free the procedure was. Now I just have to save up the $800-$1000 for a crown. Fun stuff.

We had a PTG meeting tonight. Del Fandrich presented a class on measuring string scales. Some guys showed up early to the meeting and took off the bottom board and keybed to get it ready. Then Del demonstrated how he measures speaking length and diameters of the wires. We took a close look at how the bass bridge was designed: very short backscale with a cantilever. We decided to take the opportunity to reposition the bridge, remove the cantilever, increase the backscale length and rescale the bass. Dell is going to crunch the numbers for us. One of our members acquired a bass string making machine a couple years ago, and we are going to try to make a set of bass strings from scratch! Great stuff. How lucky are we to have Del in our chapter?!

I just got home from the "after meeting meeting" at the pub down the street from the Yamaha dealer!

Good night, all!

Practised splicing, first with copper wire, then no. 13.5 and finally with no. 17 music wire. Whoever worked out the piano tuner's knot, was either a genius or got really, really lucky.