Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum String termination problem on this Bluthner model A?

The OP of Sound Problems in the Piano Forum has some metallic sounding notes in his restored Bluthner model A after a recent tuning.

Here is a recording: http://youtu.be/eJnXbRtc9B0

Del thinks the problem is probably to do with the termination at the V-bar:



Assuming Del is right, and bearing in mind Bluthner presumably shipped the piano with the same V-bar, I'd guess some of the new coils may be the cause of OP's problem.

Looking at the photo do you think that could be the case? There is no pressure bar in the tenor.

PS As Dan Silverwood pointed in his post below there could also be termination issues at the bridge.

Oh, no. Not another over-sized image Topic!

I have experienced this symptom with the vintage Heintzman products in the center register due to the strength of sound those instruments have.
From what I can hear the instrument requires voicing for sure, perhaps some hammer mating, along with string manipulation over the friction points, particularly bridgework.

Not only over-sized, but an over-sized image topic with a flash glare in the middle of it. 'Wonder where this one will go?

Small mercies, gentlemen, small mercies. At least it is embedded in the thread and we don't have to go round the houses to download stuff so we know what the poster is going on about.

This photo, large as it is, still doesn't show all the parts that the poster is going on about.

Oh, and a good tuning would help. The last two days I spent maintaining the tuning of a fine grand that was voiced to its limits for a concerto recording with orchestra. It was on the edge of noisy and only absolute unisons could make it sound. The slightst discrepancy in the unison and it got noisy. Vry heavy player, too and the piano had been out in the cold for a few hours during delivery to the studio and was losing pitch fast. Very frustrating. Very effective recording, though.

So, get it tuned then ask us. A lot of the whining is simply tuning. ... Not blaming the tuner, though, I couldn't blame anybody for anything after my last two days, but none of us know the realities behind this situation.

OK, OK, Gentlemen, I often complain to myself about the minimal information some posters provide and then omitted that the problem became apparent after a recent tuning!

Clearly the tech should look at the strings as well as tuning on the next visit. Voicing can wait until any underlying issues are resolved?

This topic might have been on this forum in the first place and I offered to put it up.

I don't think I ever traced a rattle or buzz back to a tuning pin coil, no matter how scruffily the piano was strung. Always a first time, though.

I seem to remember the bearing angle on those Blüthner uprites to be plenty steep enough.

If some noise would be produced near the coil it would be be easy to put afinger on the wire to check .. Does not seem to be known as a source of no use. What I have seen is tuning pins touching the plate on Steinway, when the plate have not been reamed before installing biggest pins.

The main problem however is the difficulty to set the pin in that case.

Quite, but I recall a discussion about coils affecting tone with some animated language about beckets.

In the original thread the OP said his tech was baffled after he tried things like seating the strings at the bridge, so it seems there just may be a problem that tuning and voicing alone can't resolve.

I had hoped not to get drawn into this, but here goes.

It's easy to see how seating at V-bars and bridge pins can affect tone because they are where the reflections of the transverse waves occur. It's perhaps not so obvious why seating at hitch pins and tuning pins can also affect tone until one realizes they are where the longitudinal waves are reflected.

You can't see, feel or hear these longitudinal waves but they carry most of the potential energy. When some of them are not properly reflected tone suffers because the lost energy cannot transfer at the bridge.

Anyway it's a possibility that might cause some bafflement.

I completely agree that we don't know the realities in this case.

It could be oversized pins touching the brass plate, the pins are vibing, of course, whatever the reason is.

Yes, that might explain why several notes are affected - yet I wonder.