Requested retune, checks & adjustments but just got a tuning

[NewAge]

Back in June I commented on a few visual anomalies on a fairly new piano. Link to post with photos here:-
http://www.uk-piano.org/piano-forums/vi ... f=3&t=7357

Further to that, I had a visit from my tuner this week.
I had given advanced instructions - having called the dealer from where the piano was purchased and specifically mentioned that in addition to tuning, I wanted a general adjustment check to be performed in line with the manufacturers requirement. Also the sustain pedal squeaked, and I especially wanted fine adjustment of the position and alignment of the hammers to the strings, as I understood that done early in the life of the piano this should then determine their definitive position for a considerable period of time.
The same person who had previously performed 3 in-house tunings for me, again arrived precisely on time. We had a brief chat about my requirements, and the tuning commenced. This took about 40-45mins.
The sustain pedal was looked at next and treated with a quick blast of WD40 at pivot points - the choice of lube concerned me a little, but at least it rectified the squeak.
I then repeated that I wanted any manufacturer's recommended checks and/or adjustments made, especially fine adjustment of the position/alignment of the hammers to strings etc, as visually to me it looked good but not absolutely perfect.
I was told that due to the newness of the piano (one & half years old), all this was really unnecessary and not required for many years (approx 10 years! was quoted).
I replied that was not my understanding at all - especially with a 'high-end'- piano which I wished to ensure was kept as near perfect as possible. So please to check!
A cursory visual check was performed which took approx a minute and a half! Neither the fall-board nor the narrow panel just above the keys were removed. This was followed up by a quick run of scales - presumably to recheck the feel of the action. I was told that everything was as near perfect as possible, that nothing more was really required.
I interpreted this as a comment from a person who was only a tuner, and who had little or no experience to perform any additional technical work.
Needless to say the cost of this visit was far less than I was expecting, but I didn't exactly find that reassuring, as I'd put faith in having a fully qualified technician satisfy the needs of my piano.
Yes the piano plays very well, as it did before, but now in better tune. But I feel disappointed and somehow cheated, and although it may be unfair I now can't help questioning even the tuning ability of this person. It sounds good enough to my old ears, but from this quick recording I made just afterwards, it could be interesting to get any feed back from the more experienced tuners and serious players amongst you on the perceived quality of tune.
http://www.box.net/shared/q2v3o7gv0y

I even had the recorder running during the tuning to act as a reference if required. Would a short edited version of this be of use to comment on the tuner's competence?

[crispin]

Dear NewAge

In your situation I would also not be too happy... but we need the input of the experts to tell what in reality we should expect

(1) I find 45 minutes somewhat short time to tune a piano... I asked how long a tuning should take at a rather good Bechstein shop.. and they claimed 1h 20 minutes in general... the last tuning I had done took about two hours ... but he did a substantial pitch change

(2) I am not sure about WD40... I would also feel alarm if my tuner started to use that (but maybe I have read about its use on some other forum?). I have a Swiss tuner who jokes that he is applying a 'swiss finish' to a german piano... he uses some vegetable grease (not sure exactly what it is) and carefully applies it to solve squeaks, etc....

(3) The dealer that supplied the current piano (which is my second) claimed that he spent two days doing the in-store preparation ... setting some distance (not sure exactly which distance - but it was something to do with the hammers) to be all exactly 2mm.... certainly the 'touch' of this piano is truly excellent and the evenness of the tone across the full range is impressive.

(4) I think you should be glad that the tuner went away rather than messing with something that he did not have the competence to deal with....

(5) I suspect that on your recorder you have a 100 Hz cutoff... ( all frequencies below 100 Hz seem very suppressed) .. thus to look for low frequencies beats due to badly tuned unisons is difficult.

(6) From all I read - this Sauter Masterclass is a top of the line upright ... and I feel that you need an equivalent quality tuner/tech to take care of it. I found my tuner by asking a piano teacher at the local conservatoire de musique ... and now that I have seen the shoddy work of other tuners - I will only let this guy touch my piano (I am a bit worried since he has retired and I do not know how long he will continue). I am allergic to these tuners who claim that all the pianos need is a bit of voicing. This may be the case - however from what I have seen - some tuners soften the hammers to hide poor tuning - and recovering from some 'over-voiced' notes is non trivial. You need to find a tuner whom you have full confidence - and then to guard him/her.

Courage!
Keep us informed -
Crispin

[Gill the Piano]

Sauter would want you to be happy; have you thought of approaching them direct? I agree that 40 -45 mins is very quick for a tuning; I usually say between an hour and an hour and a half for an average tuning, longer for a pitch raise. However, factory trained tuners are often very quick. Not that there will be many more of those...

[sussexpianos]

I am very sorry to hear that Newage did not get the work as requested.
Firstly, I would expect a tuning to last at least 1 hour+ but if its in good tuning order anyway then there might not be much to do except tidy the unisons.
I don't use wd40 as it is an oil which will contaminate wood. Protek MPL grease is good for this job.
A dealer would prep a piano before it goes out, this can be anything from 1-4 hours depending on how good they are at the factory/importer.If the customer requests a check and adjustment of the action after a couple of months of use, then this should be an easy task for a technician. If the shop has prep the piano right, this also shouldnt take long. I would agree that alightment of the hammer is important and can only be done by moving the hammers upto the strings by using a ruler/straight edge. I would also recommend checking the string levels against the hammer felt.
This service would be chargable so I cannot understand why it wasn't done except for the fact the tuner only does basic regulation. I would start looking round for a good technician!
I have visisted the Sauter factory and they are very good pianos, built to high standards with a price to match. The dealer is not doing their job right by sending you the wrong tuner.

[crispin]

Digging a little bit more ... and I find that WD40 may not be the stuff for

a quick blast of WD40 at pivot points

Exactly how many pivot points are involved? Did he go anywhere close to the piano action?

Found this on the US piano world site: it will not comfort you...
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthre ... d/1#import

Regarding the tuning in general... I have sent you via private email two reports detailing my experience with tuners... personally I would contact Sauter and see how they respond. The store where you bought your piano - how do you think they will respond when you tell them that you want an expert to service your piano?

[Pianomate]

WD40

No! No! No!

Not suitable for ANYWHERE where there is timber, felt or any other non-metal items.

The ONLY aerosol product I use for such applications is Rocol 34235 dry PTFE spray. Contains NO oils or greases.

Many years ago, the WD40 company advocated spraying it onto 78rpm records to lubricate the grooves and reduce wear. Exactly the opposite happened - Every speck of dust and grit stuck to the dried WD40 to hasten the wear, and the oil attacked the surface of the record over time.

The action of mineral oils on timber is well known amongst gunsmiths - excess oil soaks into the timber and degrades it to the extent that shotgun stocks can actually snap or crumble where soaked with oil (NB for any of you who shoot - always store your guns barrels pointing down so that oil cannot run onto the woodwork).

[christians]

how do you get rid of WD40 then?

[Pianomate]

You can't. Once it soaks into the wood, that's it.

If you see a piano where the action looks saturated in oil, WALK AWAY! It's ruined.

If a piano tuner produces a bottle of WD40, chase him out before he has chance to spray it and never let him back in again!

When NewAge mentioned that his tuner used WD40, that pretty much said it all, and I was not surpried with the rest of what he said. Do not get him back!

IMO, the dry PTFE spray however is quite safe to use as it only leaves a dry film of PTFE particles and contains no oils (use at your own risk though).

[crispin]

Let us hope the action is not saturated with oil.... and that NewAge can wipe off the excess WD40 as soon as possible... this is a story to be continued... however since this forum appears to be read by many expert tuners and dealers- I have two questions:

To the professional tuners/techs: What lubricant do you use for squeaky pedals etc. So far - we have had Rocol 34235 dry PTFE spray and Protek MPL grease recommended - are there any other choices..

To the dealers: how would you react if one of your tuners sprayed WD40 into a customer's piano ... especially a top-of-the-range upright?

[sussexpianos]

WD40


The action of mineral oils on timber is well known amongst gunsmiths - excess oil soaks into the timber and degrades it to the extent that shotgun stocks can actually snap or crumble where soaked with oil (NB for any of you who shoot - always store your guns barrels pointing down so that oil cannot run onto the woodwork).

I don't have that problem with my guns, they are composite

[sussexpianos]

To the dealers: how would you react if one of your tuners sprayed WD40 into a customer's piano ... especially a top-of-the-range upright?

I would not be very happy,but I tune all of my customers pianos unless they are very far away.The only time I use wd-40 is on nasty straight strung 1900's which are on their last legs where the rust on the pedels is the only thing holding it together!

[Pianomate]

Where it is a metallic only application with no wood or fibre componente and there is no risk of getting anything onto woodwork, I use a tiny drop of gun oil from a dropper can. Where there are fibre and / or timber components or getting lubricant onto woodwork is unavoidable, I use the the Rocol PTFE spray.

[NewAge]

All these comments have been read with great interest, which I thank you all for.

Just 2 pivot points were involved on the sustain pedal. And certainly no oil went anywhere near the action, frame, soundboard, strings or elsewhere. In fact having read here in the past and also on the US piano site that WD40 is considered taboo around pianos, directly after the tuner departed I checked for any residual oil, staining or similar evidence directly on the pedal spindle or adjacent features. Fortunately there was none of either, but took the added precaution of thoroughly wiping the area with clean strips of cloth. This has reassured me, but I will get that pedal area double-checked out with a highly recommended tuner/tech asap.
I'm also reassured that the tuner didn't do any regulation work, to mess things up further. In fact thinking about it, even before the tuning was underway I started to have doubts. After removing top and bottom panels and flipping the lid back, I noticed- in fact heard, several tools - especially the tuning lever and metal bit being placed on the unprotected polished top - something I would never dream of doing!
Just for info though, regarding the time to tune, I may have underestimated this a bit, the little lady thinks it was more like 50mins.
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that this piano must have been superbly prepared before it left the Spaichingen factory. With hindsight I'm pretty sure that the dealer did little or no preparation, although it played superbly in the showroom, and still feels and sounds great.

Pianomate; You make an interesting point about oils and shotgun stocks - by a spooky coincidence I'm a club shooter too, and note what you say about storing gun barrels pointing down - so that oil cannot run onto the woodwork. The problem is though, in reality the guns are stored in a lockable cabinet (a legal requirement now) which is designed to hold them stock down. I've just checked to see whether these cabinets can be positioned 'upside-down', but it's not possible.
Oh, and what's a 78rpm record.........

[Pianomate]

When I installed my gun cabinet, I removed the internal partitions and stuck them back the other way up.

[Gill the Piano]

If my husband referred to me as 'the little lady' (unlikely on several counts, including his brutal honesty and my vile temper) I don't think our guns would spend much time in the cabinet...but when they're in there, there stock uppards!

[Pianomate]

Oh, and what's a 78rpm record.........

I have thousands of them for sale, and restore old gramophones too.

[sussexpianos]

The guns shouldnt be that oily as it will attract dust etc. You only need the surface of the barrels to have a wipe with an oil cloth.I also find having a small bag of silcon( you get them in new pianos) in the cabinet helps to keep the moisture away, especialy in summer.

[Barrie Heaton]

There is a communications problem here. Wile 45 mins for a tuning is not uncommon for a piano that was only tuned a few month ago. However, going off the last topic you posted there were issues with the regulating just looking at the photos and the tuner should have spent more time on the piano. It would seem that you have just been sent a tuner and not a tuner tech or worse just fobbed off. Time to put your concerns in writing to both the retailer and manufacture an independent report would be useful.

As to length of time spent tuning, that is irrelevant it is the end job that counts not the time spent. To those who are looking at the German model of tuning, that is quite different to the one use in the UK.

In Germany they often spent 2 to 4 hours on one visit. in the UK its 50 to 90 minutes. In Germany they strip the piano down clean out the action Voice, regulate and tune when you brake it down, they spend the same time tuning as we do.

In the UK we look at voicing and regulating as different parts of the Job and only do them as requested this is reflected in the price you pay for a standard tuning in the UK. This is manly to do with training in the UK we have Tuners, Tuner/tec's and Technicians in Germany they only have Tuner/tec's and operate a closed shop to who can do what.


Barrie,

[crispin]

Dear NewAge

My upright piano has just been tuned ... the tuner spent 90 minutes inside the house... the last 5 minutes he spent playing the piano. In my opinion, the time needed to tune the piano depends on how close it already is in tune.

In my case : it was the first home tuning for a new piano (after being in situ for 2 months)... apparently the piano is tuned to A 446 at the factory... the retailer says that he dropped this to A 444. When the tuner visited ... he found that the octave below middle C had dropped somewhat... so he was going to tune the whole piano to A440 or A441 - however he then realised that the base notes were all high - probably close to the factory A446 initial tuning - so he would have to lower considerably the base section of the piano - too much for his liking. Given this - he ended up tuning to A443... but even this investigation to decide what to do already takes 5+ minutes... and I am not sure when you started the clock for your tuner. To continue... he took a good 15 minutes to tune the central octave plus the unisons of this octave. He then tuned the lower octaves .. and then the upper octaves - as I said all in all ~ 1h 30m.

Seeing how much the tuning of this piano has moved in the last two months (with a Dampp Chaser system installed) I can not believe that our tuner will be able to get under 1 h for some years - especially as he would like to get close to A440 to make it easy in case a friendly flautist comes to play...

Maybe your Sauter is just inherently stable so the tuner has an easy time?

[NewAge]

Barry/Crispin,
Thank you for the additional comments. I will let you know how things progress.