Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Bridge Pins, Crack Repair Ideas?

Sustain is the reverberation after the attack. So what is it? Is the musical sound not strong enough? Often that is a bad strike point, particularly if hammers have been replaced poorly. That is an easy adjustment to make, although the alignment of the hammers must be correct.

Actually sustain is the decay of the note after the attack. Reverberation is the ambience ringing in the piano, it's different. These notes have an obvious lack of sustain.

Roy when you say "restringing" you mean remove, repair, replace? Or reuse the strings? I didn't know you could replace only a few octaves of strings and have consistent tone?

If you want to get technical, sustain is the period in which sound continues to be produced after the attack. Pianos, being percussion instruments, do not have any sustain. That is reserved for winds and bowed strings.

I think you want to say that the decay of the tone is too rapid. That is what most people mean by lack of sustain in a piano. However, pianos naturally decay faster the higher the pitch. What you are hearing may be normal. Your hearing may be at fault. One cannot tell from your explanation. For example, I do not understand what you mean by "the ambience ringing in the piano." What does that mean?

You are asking for our views, but then you are not helping your own cause. You could be barking up the wrong tree entirely, but you seem to be insisting your own notions about what causes you not to like your piano, and that is keeping you from exploring other possibilities. Especially the cheap and easy ones, which is just crazy.

Restringing typically refers to replacing the old strings with new ones. As far as having consistent tone after doing so only in the treble section, you would be RESTORING consistent tone by restringing this section, since you are not complaining about any other section of the piano.....that's assuming that the strings were the sole original problem (which they are probably not, in this case). I do have one question for you Brian. I have posted two previous responses to your questions earlier in this thread, even taking the time to upload soundfiles to address your curiousity regarding what Wapin could do for your piano. Both posts elicited no response whatsoever from you. I'm just curious as to why that might be......if someone takes the time to try to assist you, isn't it just common courtesy to acknowledge that with a response?

Not being able to see the actual deterioration but assuming it is minor, I can suggest a far simpler and easier repair. I have done it many times. First, loosen the strings from the affected area enough that you can pull them up and aside from the bridge pins as best possible. Use a string hook to pull the stings up as far as possible so that they clear the bridge pins so you can work on the bridge fractures and to reset any pins which have moved over from the stress of the strings (called "traveling" by others on here). Get a couple of C clamps (common hardware store types) and some thin strips of wood (popsicle type sticks or tongue depressors will do) to serve as cauls to prevent clamp marks on the bridge base which is called the "root".

Now, get two grades of Cyanoacrylate (CA) glue ("Super" glue), the water thin type and the medium viscosity type. The smallest quantity of each you can find will be enough. You can usually find it at a hobby store where they sell model airplanes. It is often used to repair them after they have crashed. You can also get it through piano supply houses such as Schaff Piano Supply or Pianotek but if all you need is the glue, it would not be enough for a minim order, so I suggest a hobby store. Their supply is usually fresh because they sell a lot of it (at least the one where I shop does).

There is no need to and best not take the bridge pins out. Simply reset them (push them back) where they appear to have originally been set. You can use a some blunt nose pliers or a punch and a small tap hammer but absolutely do not cause any more damage to the bridge, just reset the pins into position. Then, using the water thin CA glue, cut off the tip so that it exposes the tiniest hole possible or put it into a plastic oiler bottle from Schaff Piano supply, so that you can control the amount of glue to a drop by drop application. Along the base of each pin, apply the glue. You will see it wick down into the cracks. Do this along all of the damaged area but don't fill up the voids entirely with the thin glue. Just apply enough of it so that it wicks down into the deepest part of the damaged and deteriorated area.

Now, take the medium thickness glue and again, cut the tip so only a small amount can flow. Fill the rest of the voids with it so that the glue is filling all cracks. Now, quickly, before the glue begins to set up, put your clamps and cauls on the sides of the bridge and clamp lightly, not too forcefully, just so they squeeze together whatever amount has the bridge structure has separated out sideways. You should see only a small amount of glue squeeze out. Quickly mop this up with a small cloth and some Q-tips until you see no pools of glue on the bridge top or mounds around the base of the pins, a "clean" and clear of extra glue appearance.

Wait 10 or 15 minutes for the glue to soak fully in and begin to cure. Then with the catalyst sprizter called "Zip Kicker" a small bottle that looks like what some cologne would come in (which the hobby store would also have), just give the area a few light spritzes, as if you were "perfuming" it. This will cause the CA glue to cure nearly instantly so you may begin replacing the strings without any more delay. First, put them across the bridge and past the bridge pins and turn your tuning pins while lifting the coils with a string hook just tightly enough so that the coils are approximately set and the string is tight but not yet up to pitch.

After all strings are in place, gently tune them each up to approximate pitch, (a half step low is best). Then, take a narrow screwdriver tip or small, appropriately sized punch, and with a light tap hammer, gently tap the string coils around the pins so they are even and perpendicular to the tuning pins, the way they were originally set. Now, with a brass punch or small block of wood, tap very lightly on the strings to fully seat them onto the bridge. A key dip block or a hammer shank will work very well. Tap first on the bridge next to the pin, then on each string on both sides of the bridge. Again, very lightly, just enough to push each string down upon the bridge but not causing it to dig into the wood.

Finally, raise each string up to proper pitch then fine tune two or three more times and your done! All of this can be done in about an hour and a half to two hours for the appropriate fee for that amount of time, plus the cost of the CA glue and the catalyst (probably less than $15) and you will have some glue and nearly a full bottle of catalyst left over to use on future repair jobs.

One note of caution: have the customer provide you with a fan and some open windows. If you have a respirator, great, use it but just a dust mask is really enough. If you have some eye protection glasses, use them or get some of those plastic goggles at a hardware store for a few dollars and add them to the bill. The CA glue in itself is not toxic but highly irritating to the eyes and nose. If you have your face down close to the work you're doing, the fumes may irritate you but having a strong blowing fan going and a mask and eye goggles will spare you the irritation. The catalyst on the other hand is highly toxic but you'll only be using a very small amount of it and it will evaporate quickly and any of its fumes will be carried away by the fan and be gone in just a few minutes.

You should find that the normal tone and sustain has returned after this kind of repair.

Yes CC2, thanks for the ideas ... good ones. The clips are okay but without an A/B they dont tell me as much as going to hear an actual piano ... visiting a Wapinized D next week. I dont think I like the harmonics of the Wapin, but I remain open until I hear one in person. I didn't mean to ignore you, but there was nothing more to say for now.

Thanks for everyone who has posted. And you'll forgive me now for spending more time on this disruptive response than on your truly informative and helpful ones... isn't that life, 80% of the time is spent on the worst 20%.


If YOU want to get technical, which you seemingly do then yes, that's technically true but just useless and off topic in practical terms. A piano has what we call sustain, as an acoustic guitar or even an electric guitar has sustain. 'Fast Decay' if you want to be a smarty pants but come on, this is not a thesis paper.



Of course the higher strings decay faster ... but this piano is not just doing that. And the "natural ambience" is the harmonic resonance with the other strings, and the reverb from the wood in the case and the room.

The premise here is that the Sustain is weak (decay is too fast), and there are visible pin cracks in the same area. What COULD it be in principle? Can you play along?

What cheap and easy ideas am I ignoring? You have no idea what I'm ignoring (um ...nothing).

You're insults need to stop. I have been defending this premise that the sustain is weak for only one reason ... your inability to accept it! Your presence here is not helping the discussion in principle or me specifically.

Maybe just pretend there is a "sustain" problem? I like my piano just fine, I'm simply looking at options to tweak it a little bit. The strings are 5 years old, the hammers are like new, the downbearing seems to be good. I'm a musician and a professional mastering engineer, I have relative pitch ... my hearing is not faulty, thank you. I'm looking, in principle, at ALL the OPTIONS. I may do nothing at all here, I may have Roy come up and Wapinize it someday. This thread is for general conversation on a common topic as much as it is for specifics on my piano, although we are doing pretty well given the lack of contact with it.

My technician agrees that the "sustain is weak", and he says it's due to the bridge pin area cracking ... it's a 1 to 1 between the cracks and the tone change. If you want to argue the premise then just go away. There are already too many variables to have some guy saying "well maybe the decay time is just fine and youre barking up the wrong tree" !

If I'm barking up the wrong tree why dont you spend less time proving how smart and right you are, and defining sustain for us ... and give us some new ideas like the other kind people here?

:rolleyes:

Sounds like you have a diagnosis on which you are willing to rely. Bill Bremmer has given your tech a very credible step-by-step repair technique.

I hope you will report the results.

I defined "sustain" twice, the correct version and the popular version. I said what I think is wrong with your piano, and suggested a fix that should cost no more than a tech's visit.

Today, I was tuning a Steinway D. Perhaps not the best in the
world, but average, and Garrick Ohlssohn said nice things about it when he played it. Just for fun, I checked the amount of sustain it has in the top two octaves. The amount of time between playing the top note (C-88) much louder than normal and the decay to which point it could not be distinguished as a musical tone was at most 3 seconds. Two octaves lower, perhaps twice that amount of time, 6 seconds. To talk about "sustain" being bad when that is the standard (and if anything can be said to be a standard, it would be a Steinway D), is pretty much useless. It is not a characteristic of that range of pianos.

So I suspect that the problem, if there is one, is not "sustain." But since you refuse to say what you mean, I have done the best that I can. You are not worth wasting my time on, and all I have really wanted to do was to keep others from wasting their money and energy on non-problems like this.

I would trust your tech. It sounds like he has a handle on things. Bill B gives gives good advice for executing a repair.

The reason I suggest restringing the top section is that often the coupling becomes too strong. By this I mean grooves at the termination points, which can be cleaned up. The top of the bridge becomes grooved, the sides of the bridge pins become grooved, grooves develope in the capo bar. The bridge notching might be compromised. Strings can become deformed. If the tuning pins are tight, you could put new strings on using the old pins. If it was me, I would just replace the old bridge pins too. Fixing any of this in addition to fixing the loose bridge pins should help. This will freshen up the tone, and shouldn't cost that much.

Thanks to all ...

Larry I skipped over your question, but not on purpose. Yes the soundboard is original, with an "excellent repair in a non-critical area" according to the pre-purchase inspection technician, Larry Crabbe of Atlanta.

Mr. Crabbe is a Hall of Fame PTG tech so he had better know a good soundboard. He had no issue with the sustain at the inspection, but the local tech and I both hear the last octave + as having a very fast decay.

Brian,

Respectfully,

The action and the sound board are inseparable as a pair for the success of the sound.

The action aside for the moment,

Each section of the piano is dependent on the sound board as a whole. Deficiency of tone or sustain in the treble can be caused by sound board problems in the tenor.

Ultimately, a "good" sound board is determined by it's sound, and nothing else.

I am only suggesting that, in the process of troubleshooting your sound requirements, not to leave the sound board too far out of the discussion.

Sure Larry, so what to look for in the board? There is good crown, the M&H tension resonator seems to still be working, and there are no cracks. Do you know Mr. Crabbe? He said the board is good (and he's in the Hall of Fame). The piano sounds amazing IMO, it's just this one area that is of interest.

If I list all the things that effect the 'sustain' in order if possible they would be what?

Soundboard
Bridge Pins/Bridge
Strings
Capo Bar


Wow, thanks for nothing useful, jerk. It's most impressive that you can diagnose a piano over the web with such a poor communicator and person with faulty hearing as myself informing you. You should really make your business name "Psychic Piano Tech"! You could charge less by staying at home, saving many people money on unnecesary steps like an in home visit, or using a tech with an open mind.

Brian, I am certain that Mr. Crabbe did this but
I never did hear if you tried plucking those strings and comparing with a hammer blow.
You cannot judge sustain using a hammer blow unless it is voiced correctly.
I do not believe that crown on a board and a functioning tension resonator are synonymous but this is another subject.

Interesting side point... and thanks for the reply

Well, the hammers were all shaped and leveled to the strings, although not fully voiced ... and the 'issue' was still there. Now the action is out for new key tops and key buttons/bushings ... when it gets back I'll have another listen to the plucked sound.

So you're saying to pluck the strings, moving up from the high tenor (that sounds fine) and look for a relative drop off that way?

I am saying that to get a correct evaluation of sustain time you should pluck the string and count seconds. You can also do this to help evaluate tone quality. The hammers can be voiced to match what you hear from plucking the string.
If the tone quality and sustain time are not there to begin with then all that can be done to the hammers is to get a strong attack so that something can be heard up there which is a typical sound for a piano with an old worn out soundboard. This is also part of how I evaluate a board. A hammer blow cannot bring out something that does not exist.
I can sit down and play a new (un-prepped) piano on the showroom floor and hear some notes in the high tenor and treble that have wonderful tone color and long sustain time while at the same time some of the neighboring notes will be quite the opposite - requiring further investigation - part of which involves plucking the string.

Maybe;
Quality of the termination of the strings.
Overall condition of the sound board
Regulation
Voicing of the hammers.

As Gene points out.
Deciding on condition depends on your experience in listening.

Funny, this would be easier if we were all at the piano.

Field trip to Ohio anyone?

Nice to see I wasn't the first one to get the red carpet treatment from this guy.

Yes, I can't believe the number of non-technicians coming on the Piano Tuner-Technician's Forum to ask for (free) help and advice from professionals, only to rebuff the responses in an ungrateful manner, then become defensive and even agressive. It seems they just want confirmation of their pre-conceived notions.

Why don't we just ignore these people and their posts, and let their threads die??

If someone attacks my colleagues, they sure won't get any help from me.
Of course I am not talking about others with a positive attitude.

So go ahead and flame me, I am done with this thread!

so long.

Come on, guys and gals, let's get out of here and quit wasting our time on another helpless case.

Back a few years ago when I posted here about my M&H RBB soundboard question, whether or not to replace it or keep it, I received a myriad of responses, replace, don't replace etc. In the end, I kept the original soundboard, the sustain was very good. One tech said that if it had not failed by now, chances are it would not fail in the near future.

It's hard, I believe, to accurately diagnose sustain problems without actually inspecting the piano. As most have pointed out, there could be a number of issues here. I hope you can find the real reason for the loss of sustain up there.

Thanks Grandpianoman

Yes Jurgen, please leave this thread if you have a bad attitude ... for the record I never "attacked" anyone in this thread, I was defending attacks from BDB that were escalating and uncalled for. Trucker John has a bug up his shorts ever since I posted about a bad dealer experience (and didn't name the dealer).

Please leave so that those of us who are open minded and sincerely kind (seemingly everyone except Trucker John, BDB and Supply) will enjoy a thread about a bridge.

gee, I can't believe that professional technicians can both disagree with each other and be arrogant jerks too! They must be humans after all.