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I was late! :-)



Rafael, I notice that you would go "..note by note..", would that be tuning with an ETD?

Regards, a.c.
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It can be done both ways, aurally or with an ETD.

Usually I do a pitch correction pass with Verituner, followed by an aural fine tuning uing a Papp's mute and tuning unisons as I go.

But in this case, with no Papp's mute available, I suggest using strip mutes, tuning one string per note in the whole piano and then tuning unisons by pulling out the strip one note at a time. The first string can be tuned with an ETD or aurally as you wish. Unisons are tuned aurally as always.

Success!

To give credit where it's due, Jurgen had already contacted me behind the scenes and advised much as Alfredo had: not to remove the damper mechanism, but rather tilt or remove the action as far as possible in order to strip mute, tune the middle strings, then remove the strip and tune the outside strings using the stick mutes. That's what I did. Pulling out the strip mute note by note didn't seem practical to me.

Fortunately, the action (including damper mechanism) was very easy to remove.

So, here's some more info, for anyone interested.

It's a straight-strung piano, full plate, 85 notes, agraffes on all of them, with some wound trichords in the low tenor. Kirkman no. 42,xxx (don't remember the exact numer). Would anyone be able to date this instrument? We know that it predates the Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902). It was hidden on a river island during the war. The toe rail still shows the water marks.

Damping was only so-so, but we decided to proceed anyway, because this aspect had never bothered the owner. He's a fellow member of my church congregation, had approached me earlier, saying that the pins were too loose to hold a tuning. I told him about superglue treatment in enough detail that he was confident to try it himself. He touches up unisons occasionally, so I had told him that he should carefully break loose the pins one day after applying the superglue, and that he should take care to move only slightly counterclockwise, and preferably a reverse the movement afterwards, in order not to lose too much overall tension. He might have overdone the latter part, as some strings were quite sharp. However, he had broken no strings, and the advantage was that I didn't have to do a pitch raise. The instrument was, on average, actually close to 440, so I kept it there, which seemed viable with the full plate, after tightening screws and checking the back. His CA application was very successful and very neatly done. My first pass was simply open unisons, using my stick mutes if in doubt. For the second pass, I removed the action, strip-muted just under the hammer marks, did middle strings for the whole compass, popped out the action and removed the strip, then did the outside strings using the stick mutes only in-between unisons, where it's quite easy.

At that stage, we were both happy to leave the instrument as it was, for now. I put much effort into the unisons, which was obviously important to him.

By the way, the pins have oblong tapers, not square. We'd discussed before that I don't have a suitable tip, but he is quite handy on a lathe and router, and had made himself a lever some years ago, which worked remarkably well.

Re. playability and condition: Some bridle tapes had broken, one hammer centre was stiff, and one jack return spring had broken, but for the rest, the instrument was in remarkably good shape, especially the bridges.

The owner was extremely happy, seeing that one of the local professionals had refused to tune the instrument and condemned it to the dump already 20 years ago, and it had been gathering dust ever since. Now, pin torque is very good on most pins, rather tight on a few, and somewhat low on a few others, but enough to hold the tuning.

It was very humbling to see the owner so happy and grateful, and the barbecue to which he had invited me, was a lovely ending to the day. We jokingly decided to give the Kirkman a first name: "Lazarus".

My thanks to all who gave their advice.

Well done Mark.
Get two Papps mutes. They could be your treble mutes of choice for life for all uprights.

Good for you, Mark, well done. Thank you for your happily detailed report.
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Hear hear!

Rafael, how do you pull the mute strip out for each note without causing the hammer shanks to be badly pushed aside. Sometimes I have been able to pass the end of the mute strip around a cast iron support and out instead of between the hammer shanks; but not always.

I do not pull out the strip for each note.

First, I tilt the action (no need to remove it).

Then I strip mute the whole piano. In bichords I mute every other note. I put the action back into place and I tune one string for all notes.

Then I tilt again the action and I strip mute only trichords, every other note, muting the left string of one note and the right string of the contiguous note. I replace the action and I tune the second string of all the notes.

Last, I tilt the action again, remove the strips, replace the action and tune the third string for all trichords. I can also strip mute all trichords by inserting the strip mute every other note leaving open the untuned string.

It is more complicated to describe than to do.

The first time I saw this procedure was in a video of Rick Buttler pitch raising a grand. Really fast! As he gets a pace in tuning each string sounding each note only twice and going to the next one, as he only has to move the tuning hammmer to the next tuning pin. No need to pull the strip or replace a mute. You only jump from one string to the next one.

Yes, I think I understand how it can work. When tuning the unisons, you jump from one pin in a lateral line to the next, passing over every other note (identified by the sound of one tuned string), tuning the obvious untuned unison. I will try the method, it sounds good; particularly for overdampers. Gracias Rafael.

Hemloch,

The alternative for the trichords in an overdamper (after having tuned the centre strings using a muting strip) is to use a wedge mute or stick mute. One can soon get into a pattern as follows:
Insert the mute, e.g. between C and C#
Tune the left string of left note (C) and the right string of right note (C#)
Shift the mute one note to the right, so now C# is the left note and D the right note
Your lever is still sitting on the right string of C#
Simply move the lever to the left string, to finish the unison, then tune the right string of right note (which is now D)
Shift mute
Left string of D, right string of D#
Etc. etc.

That's what I ended up doing, and it worked quite well once I got the groove.

Thanks Mark, that is also worth trying out.