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Piano tools?
Get yourself a huge flat blade screwdriver and an even bigger hammer.
Make the latter a maul with a rather short handle.
A good hand can generally build most of the specialty tools needed.
String wrapper, easy build.
Oh -- and that huge pair of hardened wirecutters, gotta buy those, although I've found that if you can find an old and blackened pair from Grandaddy's day, you are better off than with the new junk. Most people don't realize that the common pair of large pliers has a wire sheer built into them...
And be careful. Acoustic pianos can be dangerous. Lots of tension on that harp.
And the end of a piano string, well you ain't been stuck until you've been stuck by THAT.
--Mac
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Quote:
Piano tools?
Get yourself a huge flat blade screwdriver and an even bigger hammer.
Make the latter a maul with a rather short handle.
A good hand can generally build most of the specialty tools needed.
String wrapper, easy build.
Oh -- and that huge pair of hardened wirecutters, gotta buy those, although I've found that if you can find an old and blackened pair from Grandaddy's day, you are better off than with the new junk. Most people don't realize that the common pair of large pliers has a wire sheer built into them...
--Mac
Yup - the guy I referred to has made many of his tools.
Glenn
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One of the most valuable things I learned as a teen was how to soften steel so you can work it easily and reharden it again.
Torch and can fulla oil, there are plenty of places that tell you what color to heat to before quenching to realize a particular hardness range.
To soften, heat and let it cool real slow.
To harden, heat to the desired color for the target hardness and immediately quench in the can of room temperature motor oil.
Outdoors.
--Mac
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I'd think about this if I find that I have to do repair work. In my move to CO, I had to leave lots of 'stuff' behind. Starting somewhat from scratch.
So, I'm taking the low road for now and just trying my hand at tuning pianos. I have experiences now with two different Baldwins, my Yamaha, a Story & Clark and a Petrov (all upright styles of various types - console, spinet, upright grand)
If a repair is necessary, I don't feel qualified to handle those issues.
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Depends on the repair, Scott.
Yer qualified for many certain things you may encounter. '
A broken hammer shaft, for instance. Wood glue and wirewrap and back in business, or replace the shaft entirely. A relatively easy repair that can be handled with simple hand tools.
Replacing a keycap.
Repair/replace a pedal rod.
etc.
Since you're an engineer, if you study the various and few piano actions, understanding comes and adjustment comes along with it.
First thing to know is that the Grand Piano action has a repeater and the upright and lowly Schpinette do not. (Repeater check - tap a key with two fingers repeated quickly and see how fast the piano can actually play the repeated notes. Grand action can do it. )
The good technician knows when a certain task calls for more experience and knows when to hand it off to same.
You can often simply tell a potential customer that the problem is outside the scope of what you came prepared to do and then recommend to them who to call. Your inside knowledge of even that much is likely a lot more than they know.
--Mac
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Scott: Don't know if you are familiar with this site: http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/cfrmIt covers a lot of ground, but the Piano Tuners - Technicians forum might be useful. Glenn
Last edited by Glenn Kolot; 12/06/09 02:05 PM.
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Back in the daze of university music school, we had a competition among students every year to see which team could pass an upright piano through a 12" hoop the fastest.
Sledge hammers and other man-powered tools as those were the only things allowed. Darnit.
I showed up the second year with safety goggles, an air compressor and a 10,000 rpm diamond saw...
They prolly don't let kids do "dangerous" things like that on campus anymore.
Sissies
--Mac
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Sorry, but I have to ask this as no one else has.
So mechanical pianos with real strings have "stretch" tuning incorporated into them, for reasons of clarity/chorussing of notes. Even the (?stringless) Rhodes, according to a poster above.
If so, do electronic keyboards incorporating a piano sound, as almost all of them do, also have stretch tuning dialled into their pitch specifications?
J.
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Yes. Most MIDI piano samples are the stretch tuning.
Easy enough to detect Stretch Tuning:
Using one finger from each hand, strike the C below middle C at the same time as the C above middle C and listen to the sustained notes.
Only important thing here is to strike both notes at about the same loudness.
If you hear the little tiny "buzzing" sound of the beats, which are the exact same thing that you would hear when tuning one guitar string to another and the string you are tuning is close, but not quite dead on the other string's frequency, you get a modulation effect. The energy will not be constant.
This can also be seen on fast VU meters as well, like LED meters or the meters on computer screens. Set for Peak and not Average, of course. Look for a pulsing at the top of the meter's indication and that is the Beat.
Without the beat present, a piano or rhodes tuned dead on to Perfect Octaves, the note will simply sustain at a flat level, no tiny little joyous ear candy in the buzz, just sounds like a Xylophonem Glock or set of Vibes does when playing the same two notes simultaneously. Careful with Vibes patches, though, if you don't have one that is "motor off" then the pulsating sound of the motor spinning the reso tube dampers can mask all of this.
The Grand Piano typically has a different amount of stretch applied than the smaller pianos. Upright has its own Stretch tuning table as does the lowly short Schpinette. Due to string lengths.
--Mac
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