Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum When doing a pitch raise on old uprights...

...what are the precautions to take?

What are the signs to look for that indicate that the piano cannot take a pitch raise?

1. Look for broken strings.

2. Inspect the bridge caps for bad cracks.

3. Remove the action nuts and swing the top of the action toward you. If it is hard to get the action clear of the studs, the pinblock may have separated from the back.

4. Check the tightness of the pins in the bottom octave where the tension is highest.

5. Tune A4 or C4 to pitch and then one string for each octave going to the top to see if any strings will break.

6. If all is OK, raise the pitch!

What Jeff said is everything I would do but I would like to add one thing.

Check for loose plate bolts at the top! Often one of them might even be stripped out so you should take the bolt out and fill some wood in there until the threads bite and you can tighten them all down.

But don't tighten the nose bolt. That is a bolt that goes through the plate, a hole in the soundboard, and into a back brace. for that matter you probobly don't need to worry about any other perimeter bolts except the very top row above the pins.

-Daniel

Thank you so much, Jeff and Daniel!

One other thing: Tell the customer that the piano may not be tunable before you start, and say that the consequences may be broken strings or something else that may render the piano completely unplayable.

One thing I do on old, rusty strings, is take the string a little below pitch to loosen any sticking points and then start raising. Unless there is any defect in the piano, it is my understanding that any piano made from about 1935 on was designed to be at A-440 and in my experience, most pianos prior to 1935 say about 1900-1935 were made so well that they can hold concert pitch well. In the 3-4 years that I have been tuning now, I've only come across one piano that I was not comfortable bringing up to A-440. However, maybe I've just been lucky so far. I have yet to experience a cracked or broken plate. When I do a pitch raise, I start at the treble break and tune up to C8 then I go from the top of the bass bridge down to A0. I also tune this way too. Seems to make for a very stable tuning. Have you tried doing a "mute-less pitch raise" with Tunelab? The piano usually ends up amazingly close in just one pass!!!