President’s Message
Can you believe it's already March? Time is flying by so fast that, I woke up last Monday morning and by that afternoon it was already Friday!
In just over three months, the 50th anniversary PTG National Convention will take place in Kansas City. That is not far off, in time, or distance. Wouldn't it be great if the entire Oklahoma Chapter could attend this historic event? I know, it's expensive to go, and we don't earn income if we're not out there working. But, I can't think of a better way to learn new ways to improve our craft, and besides, it's tax deductible!
For those who were not present at the last chapter meeting, it was voted and approved to earmark $1200.00 of the Chapters funds to offset the registration cost of the Convention. If you are an RPT or an Associate member and are current with your dues, just save your paid receipt for your Convention registration and the twelve hundred dollars will be divided equally among those members showing proof of attendance. Now, is this a deal or what??
The 50 year Anniversary will only come once, I doubt if few or any of us will be around for the next one. So, let's start planning. June will be here before we know it!
Bob
Oklahoma Chapter President
Chapter Officers
President - Bob Scheer
Vice President - David Bonham
Secretary - Nathan Sobel
Treasurer - Gary Bruce
Newsletter Editors - Norman Cantrell & Blane Morris
“All expression of opinion and all statements of supposed fact are published on the authority of the author as listed and are not to be regarded as expressing the view of this chapter or the Piano Technicians Guild, Inc. unless such statements or opinions have been adopted by the chapter or the Piano Technicians Guild, Inc.”
Norm’s Noncents
I ran into an interesting situation yesterday. This is not that uncommon but the solution to the problem may be novel to some of you. My customer who was the owner of a Baldwin model L grand was complaining that the music desk was difficult to slide in and out. This was indeed the case so I was left to resolve the matter. This is a fairly simple procedure in the shop. The solution involves removing the music desk glide block from one side of the piano or the other and simply removing some material from the back side at the belt sander to allow a bit more clearance for the music desk once it is reinstalled in the piano. Unfortunately I was not at the shop but rather at the customer’s residence and did not have my handy belt sander with me. What to do? In this particular case the customer is a regular who had left me alone as she had gone on to work so there were no witnesses.
I removed the glide block in the prescribed manner and took it outside to the customer’s concrete driveway. Using the rough concrete as a giant sandpaper file, I was able to remove a modest amount of material in short order. I also sprinkled some teflon powder into the felt at the ends of the music desk to assist in the lubrication. Once the glide block was back in place the music desk worked in and out flawlessly. Necessity is indeed the mother of all invention.
I also wanted to give some hard data to a question that arose during last month’s technical discussion regarding tuning hammers. At one point the concept of additional tension being added to the piano during a pitch raise was discussed. A number of around 2 tons of additional tension was thought to be the right answer. I have been in the process of restringing a Wurlitzer grand piano and because it had been restrung before I questioned the stringing scale. I used the string tension formulas in the Calculating Technician series of articles by Dave Roberts in back issues of the Journal. I used a spreadsheet to develop a comparison between the existing scale and what I proposed to be a smoother scale in terms of transition between string tensions at size breaks.
Using this information it was easy to simply plug in the numbers at a half step lower and compare the average tension between the piano at pitch and at an exact half step flat. Using the top 30 notes of the piano the average tension difference was 15.3 pounds. On this particular piano there are 50 wound strings in the bass and tenor and the rest are plain unisons. The bass and tenor strings would experience an additional 765 pounds of tension and the remaining 57 notes of treble strings would experience 2616.3 additional pounds of tension. The combined total would be 3381.3 pounds of tension. Since the average piano that needs a pitch raise is rarely exactly one half step flat but in fact the treble may be as much as a whole step flat in the top octave or so the idea of around 1 ? to 2 tons of additional tension is accurate. Stretched out and sanded flat.
Norman Cantrell, RPT
Meeting Notice
The next meeting of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Piano Technician’s Guild
will be on Thursday March 15th (beware the Ides of March)
at 8:30 a.m. at The Church of the Servant in Oklahoma City.
The address is 14343 N. MacArthur.
(North of Memorial)
Come to the door closest to the construction dumpster.
We will be meeting in the Community Hall
David Bonham will present a technical on Grand Damper Regulation using the Spurlock method. Plan now to attend.
From Keith Morgan, RPT
Some time ago, I went to a lady's house to tune a piano. She had one of the most dreadful Whitney spinets I have ever heard. The man who sold it to her told her that it needed to be tuned only once every ten years because it had freeze-dried strings.
It had been ten years, and she thought that it might need tuning. It was a major third flat, and the sound was absolutely unbelievable. She objected to having to pay for two pitch raises.
I don't imagine that I helped matters very much when I told her that it also had a decaffinated soundboard.
Someday I'm going to write a book about some of these
experiences.
TSA Update
In case you missed it the Oklahoma Chapter will once again be hosting the Texas State Association Regional seminar in October of 2007.
The seminar will take place from October 11 through 14 at the Crowne Plazza Hotel in Oklahoma City. Our own Gary Bruce is the Seminar Director. You can stay abreast of the latest developments by visiting the TSA web site at ptg.org/tsa. Gary is working hard to line up a great group of instructors and exhibitors.
Oakie Doakie Supply has not been asked at this time to be an exhibitor. Given their investment in advertising dollars over the years to this fine publication this oversight might want to be addressed.