Music Trade Review
Issue: 1951 Vol. 110 N. 9 - Page 25
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
PRACTICAL PIANO TUNING
By ALEXANDER HART
Formerly with Steinway & Sons Tuning Department, Instructor
Piano Tuning, Teachers College, Columbia University, N. Y.
Registered Member of the
National Association of Piano Tuners
CHAPTER 33 - Piano Tuning in Review
—65—
Making Your Work Easier
The imported oil can is, and I am
sure will prove, invaluable to those who
must use just a drop at a time, as this
one gives you this amount and no more.
I find it very good for just one drop on
the tuning pin, or wherever you wish to
use it.
The scissors is also imported, so handy
when one wants to make a slit in a piece
of felt or paper, when out of punchings
for building up lost motion in pedals.
Also for cutting off old bridle straps, etc.
Another easy work and time saver is
to cut up a few narrow strips of sand-
paper to the size of the above photo-
graph, which shows a piece of wood cut
off from a cigar box. All you need to do
is fasten the strip of sandpaper with an
ordinary paper clip.
Each and every piano service man em-
ploys, and enjoys, his own-made gadgets.
—66—
There is no denying the fact that with-
out certain tools for special purposes one
might as well give the job up; otherwise,
he is apt to run into trouble.
A case in question might answer our
purpose. This concerns the whippen in
general, and also the back check wires
and flanges. It has been said that should
the back checks be too far away from
the catchers, they can be pushed inward
with the hand, thus bringin them closer
to the catchers. This is all right on a
new piano when the wood is not too
dried out. By doing it this way, one is
likely to break off the whippen flange,
and then it is a lot of time wasted on
account of not having this special tool,
a back check bender, which can be pur-
chased in all reliable piano supply
houses.
For old uprights this bender is indis-
pensable—no worry about breaking the
flanges—when bending damper flanges.
I will admit it is almost an impossi-
bility to be able to carry every conceiv-
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, SEPTEMBER, 1951
able item necessary to make all repairs,
but a back check bender comes first, last
and always.
hard to turn around to get them out.
This is caused by not having the right
screw driver for the right screw.
—68—
SCISSORS
OIL CAN
GLUE TOT
—67—
There is something else to mention while
on the subject of back checks, and that is
the difference between trying to save
time and making your work easier. You
save one way, and make it harder for
yourself the other way, i.e., pushing
flange pins back in place with a screw
driver and perchance unloosing the
bushing cloth, hence, a repinning or
replacing with a new one. The same goes
for all flanges.
There are many good reliable service
men who delight in having just the right
tool to work with; others, however, use
the same screw driver for no matter what
size the screw, large or small. Yet, it
might be the easiest way out for some,
but hard on the follow-up man. I mean
by this statement that one often finds
screws so mutilated that they are very
Another item of interest for making
it easier for the next fellow worker is
to preach a little gospel by telling him
not to interfere with a screw on top of
the hammer, shank flange, and techni-
cally called the regulating screw, and is
very important for final regulating on
the grand piano actions. To put your
finger on the one who unintentionally
tries to move these screws up or down is
in reality doing more harm than good to
the regulating.
As a general rule, it is safe to assume
that pianos, grand, upright or spinets,
are thoroughly regulated, and receive a
final inspection before leaving the fac-
tory. Therefore, unless the instrument
has been mistreated or subjected to cli-
matic changes not conducive to its wel-
fare, there could be no need of thorough
regulating for a number of years, merely
the ordinary check-up by competent
service men at regular intervals, and by
those who know the action, like a watch
maker knows his watch.
We all know from experience how
easy it is to try to experiment with things
we would so much like to do. But, what
can we do is quite different. We can't
do much harm by keeping our hand off,
or meddling with things that are best
left to those who know how.
Winters Piano Co. Sold
Paul Winters, who founded the Win-
ters Piano Co. of New Philadelphia,
Ohio in 1925, recently sold out to Ken-
neth Espenschied of Dover, Ohio.
PLAYERS REBUILT
ACQUAINT YOUR PERSONNEL
with
ZEISS PRECISION T U N I N G CHARTS
Price $50.00 — A Must for Spinets
Zeiss Charts
Box 51
Brawley, Calif.
• Airmotors
• Bellows
• Pneumatics
• Rebuilt
Write:
TOLBERT F. CHEEK
11 Beauport Avenue, Gloucester, Mass.
PRACTICAL PIANO TUNING
By ALEXANDER HART
Formerly with Steinway & Sons Tuning Department, Instructor
Piano Tuning, Teachers College, Columbia University, N. Y.
Registered Member of the
National Association of Piano Tuners
CHAPTER 33 - Piano Tuning in Review
—65—
Making Your Work Easier
The imported oil can is, and I am
sure will prove, invaluable to those who
must use just a drop at a time, as this
one gives you this amount and no more.
I find it very good for just one drop on
the tuning pin, or wherever you wish to
use it.
The scissors is also imported, so handy
when one wants to make a slit in a piece
of felt or paper, when out of punchings
for building up lost motion in pedals.
Also for cutting off old bridle straps, etc.
Another easy work and time saver is
to cut up a few narrow strips of sand-
paper to the size of the above photo-
graph, which shows a piece of wood cut
off from a cigar box. All you need to do
is fasten the strip of sandpaper with an
ordinary paper clip.
Each and every piano service man em-
ploys, and enjoys, his own-made gadgets.
—66—
There is no denying the fact that with-
out certain tools for special purposes one
might as well give the job up; otherwise,
he is apt to run into trouble.
A case in question might answer our
purpose. This concerns the whippen in
general, and also the back check wires
and flanges. It has been said that should
the back checks be too far away from
the catchers, they can be pushed inward
with the hand, thus bringin them closer
to the catchers. This is all right on a
new piano when the wood is not too
dried out. By doing it this way, one is
likely to break off the whippen flange,
and then it is a lot of time wasted on
account of not having this special tool,
a back check bender, which can be pur-
chased in all reliable piano supply
houses.
For old uprights this bender is indis-
pensable—no worry about breaking the
flanges—when bending damper flanges.
I will admit it is almost an impossi-
bility to be able to carry every conceiv-
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, SEPTEMBER, 1951
able item necessary to make all repairs,
but a back check bender comes first, last
and always.
hard to turn around to get them out.
This is caused by not having the right
screw driver for the right screw.
—68—
SCISSORS
OIL CAN
GLUE TOT
—67—
There is something else to mention while
on the subject of back checks, and that is
the difference between trying to save
time and making your work easier. You
save one way, and make it harder for
yourself the other way, i.e., pushing
flange pins back in place with a screw
driver and perchance unloosing the
bushing cloth, hence, a repinning or
replacing with a new one. The same goes
for all flanges.
There are many good reliable service
men who delight in having just the right
tool to work with; others, however, use
the same screw driver for no matter what
size the screw, large or small. Yet, it
might be the easiest way out for some,
but hard on the follow-up man. I mean
by this statement that one often finds
screws so mutilated that they are very
Another item of interest for making
it easier for the next fellow worker is
to preach a little gospel by telling him
not to interfere with a screw on top of
the hammer, shank flange, and techni-
cally called the regulating screw, and is
very important for final regulating on
the grand piano actions. To put your
finger on the one who unintentionally
tries to move these screws up or down is
in reality doing more harm than good to
the regulating.
As a general rule, it is safe to assume
that pianos, grand, upright or spinets,
are thoroughly regulated, and receive a
final inspection before leaving the fac-
tory. Therefore, unless the instrument
has been mistreated or subjected to cli-
matic changes not conducive to its wel-
fare, there could be no need of thorough
regulating for a number of years, merely
the ordinary check-up by competent
service men at regular intervals, and by
those who know the action, like a watch
maker knows his watch.
We all know from experience how
easy it is to try to experiment with things
we would so much like to do. But, what
can we do is quite different. We can't
do much harm by keeping our hand off,
or meddling with things that are best
left to those who know how.
Winters Piano Co. Sold
Paul Winters, who founded the Win-
ters Piano Co. of New Philadelphia,
Ohio in 1925, recently sold out to Ken-
neth Espenschied of Dover, Ohio.
PLAYERS REBUILT
ACQUAINT YOUR PERSONNEL
with
ZEISS PRECISION T U N I N G CHARTS
Price $50.00 — A Must for Spinets
Zeiss Charts
Box 51
Brawley, Calif.
• Airmotors
• Bellows
• Pneumatics
• Rebuilt
Write:
TOLBERT F. CHEEK
11 Beauport Avenue, Gloucester, Mass.
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