Piano Tuning - How to mute strings on high notes

[augustpasimio]

Hello, All,
I'm just learning to tune pianos.  I attempted to tune an upright piano.  I was able to tune from C3 to C5 ok.  But I was having problems muting the strings for C6 and above.  When I insert the rubber mute, it gets in the way of the hammer, so I can't play the note.  On the higher notes, I couldn't even insert the mute.  Can you describe how to mute the strings on the high notes (C5 and above)?  Thanks.  August. 

[indianajo]

It has been five days, all the pros must be out tuning pianos in the pre-Christmas busy season.
I ran into pins right above the hammers on a Baldwin Hamilton near my summer trailer, where the strings were too short to pluck the strings above the hammers.  I ordered a tuning kit from Steve's Thursday which includes two kinds of mutes plus a real tuning wrench, 2.2X longer than the 6" allen wrench I had been using as a handle.
The kit comes with two kinds of mutes, rubber wedges, and wedges with a twisted wire handle coming out the fat end of the wedge.  The ones without the handle are "grand" mutes the website says.  I think the ones with the wire are for sticking through the action to mute strings behind it.  The kit comes with a video, we'll see if my guess is right.  I've been tuning my Sohmer 39 console for 25 years without mutes by holding keys down with a roll of nickels and plucking the string I was tuning, We'll see how it goes tuning this Hamilton in a country church next summer by hitting the strings with (felt) hammers, using mutes.  

[silverwoodpianos]

But I was having problems muting the strings for C6 and above.  When I insert the rubber mute, it gets in the way of the hammer, so I can't play the note.  On the higher notes, I couldn't even insert the mute.  Can you describe how to mute the strings on the high notes (C5 and above)? 

Using the forefinger of your left hand carefully pull the damper head back from the unison strings and insert the wire handled mute from above the damper head into the unison muting off two of the pieces of wire. If the parts are crowded together you might have to pull two damper heads back at once to get the mute down into the area to free up the hammer strike.

This is done typically with the right two pieces leaving the left side or longest piece of wire of the unison open to vibrate.

Then strike your octave. The key you are tuning will be diminished as you only have the power of one string in motion.  Tune the string to the octave beat less or as beat less as you can make it.
Remember with some stringing scales the mathematics are not great so many pieces of treble wire will have their own sympathetic vibrations or false beating oscillations.

At 6:30 or so in this video you can see the insertion of the rubber mute with wire handle and the damper heads below the mute. If the damper head is pulled away one could send the mute lower into the unison.

 It is not necessary to use the exact technique shown, but there are plenty of videos on this to gain ideas from.

[hfmadopter]

 I ordered a tuning kit from Steve's Thursday which includes two kinds of mutes plus a real tuning wrench

This was bound to happen, congrats !! You will grow to love that tuning wrench and learn to use it well, I know you will !

Next will be voicing, it's a given.

[indianajo]

The pain in my wrist was so bad two weeks ago I had to give up piano practice for a week.  I sprained both wrists in a PiYO class which was free, good for my heart, stetched my muscles like never before, but had waay too much impact on my wrists when I touched the floor.  Even for lady pushups from the knee. For the record, I can't even open jelly jars now without straining a tendon to my thumb, and I need 26" long channellock pliers to open pickel jars.  You can build up muscle strength, but your tendons, you have to deal with age on a "change your movements to lower stress" basis. 
I ordered the longest wrench Steve's had, SH18, with the button on the back for hammering in loose pins.  My 1982 Sohmer 39 came with a "scratch and dent" discount, and I couldn't spot any scratches and dents. I assume it must be something wrong with that G5 that needs tuning every month. The lady at Steve's sent me two oversize pins, too.  next adventure- replacing the broken string in the Sohmer, that I've been putting off ten years. After that, maybe the loose pin.  And the Baldwin grand in the next  county with the loose pin that is 5 notes flat, I'll look like a pro at replacing pins after I do it 4 or 5 times on my own piano.  Mostly the grand is used as a flower stand in the fellowship hall, but the middle pedal works, and they say I can use it if I don't mess up the flowers during Christmas.  

[hfmadopter]

The pain in my wrist was so bad two weeks ago I had to give up piano practice for a week.  I sprained both wrists in a PiYO class which was free, good for my heart, stetched my muscles like never before, but had waay too much impact on my wrists when I touched the floor.  Even for lady pushups from the knee. For the record, I can't even open jelly jars now without straining a tendon to my thumb, and I need 26" long channellock pliers to open pickel jars.  You can build up muscle strength, but your tendons, you have to deal with age on a "change your movements to lower stress" basis. 
I ordered the longest wrench Steve's had, SH18, with the button on the back for hammering in loose pins.  My 1982 Sohmer 39 came with a "scratch and dent" discount, and I couldn't spot any scratches and dents. I assume it must be something wrong with that G5 that needs tuning every month. The lady at Steve's sent me two oversize pins, too.  next adventure- replacing the broken string in the Sohmer, that I've been putting off ten years. After that, maybe the loose pin.  And the Baldwin grand in the next  county with the loose pin that is 5 notes flat, I'll look like a pro at replacing pins after I do it 4 or 5 times on my own piano.  Mostly the grand is used as a flower stand in the fellowship hall, but the middle pedal works, and they say I can use it if I don't mess up the flowers during Christmas.  

Heal well !

Before you start hammering new pins into a grand do a little reading, the pin block needs back support on a grand so you will need to make up a support mechanism of some sort ( even a block of wood if it fits right will work). When you put in the new strings expect some retunings to be needed of those notes.

It's amazing what some peoples priorities are concerning pianos. Flower arrangements, village scenes etc.

[silverwoodpianos]

Blog posting regarding grand piano pin block support.

Photo album at the link provided in the bottom of the posting. To view the photos it is best to right click on the hyperlink and "open in new window."

Done this way one can toggle back and forth between the blog text and the photo set.

Happy viewing and reading.


https://silverwoodpianos.blogspot.ca/2011/05/grand-piano-pin-block-support.html

[indianajo]

Thanks.
When I take the music rack off the Baldwin grand, I might have spotted that the pin block was not supported by the iron frame like a console piano, but thanks for the tip. It will save me a three hours bus trip for nothing going over to the next county without wedges.  
Any idea roughly what thickness gap between the pin block and the iron frame? 1", 2", 3"? More?  
The tool kit has to fit in a backpack to go on a city bus, so a full assorment of wood is not in the plan.
Gee, I miss real gasoline.  I would have had this scrap in the trunk of my Ford before the RFG turned to industrial waste because I didn't drive it enough.  I've done more creative things than make wedges out of junk lying by the side of the road bafore.  When my alternator support bolt broke in the country, I made a wood wedge arrangement strong enough to run the fan and water pump to get me home.  

[hfmadopter]

Thanks.
When I take the music rack off the Baldwin grand, I might have spotted that the pin block was not supported by the iron frame like a console piano, but thanks for the tip. It will save me a three hours bus trip for nothing going over to the next county without wedges.  
Any idea roughly what thickness gap between the pin block and the iron frame? 1", 2", 3"? More?  
The tool kit has to fit in a backpack to go on a city bus, so a full assorment of wood is not in the plan.
Gee, I miss real gasoline.  I would have had this scrap in the trunk of my Ford before the RFG turned to industrial waste because I didn't drive it enough.  I've done more creative things than make wedges out of junk lying by the side of the road bafore.  When my alternator support bolt broke in the country, I made a wood wedge arrangement strong enough to run the fan and water pump to get me home.  

You will need to slide the action out, you will find a good sized screw in each block at the ends of the keyboard. Those blocks hold in the fall board. Remove the fall board then removed the slip board which is the board edging along the keys length. That may or may not have screws going in from the under side. My grand has four screws holding that in but some do not and I'm not sure what Baldwin did.. Then slide the action out. This is way easier than it is sounding. Now you have a full view of the underside of the pin block. It's a big open cavity. Usually you would have a block mechanism made up with screw jacks. The real tool goes the full length of the width of the action but you could devise something smaller that does a section of pins at a time. I'm guessing the space to be 5-6 inches that has to be filled but that is not a standard by any means . I think you bought the piano tuning and rebuilding  book a couple of years ago ? It's illustrated in there. Several blogs as Dan mentioned out there, and also youtube. You would need two small pieces of board if you want to use wedges and not sure how even a pressure you could apply. But if that works you need to wedge between the two boards. Don't let wedges dig into the action bed of the piano, the action slides on that when pedaling.

Research this before you go is best I can say from here. But I am sure you can devise something suitable even if it did take two trips..

[silverwoodpianos]

When I take the music rack off the Baldwin grand, I might have spotted that the pin block was not supported by the iron frame like a console piano, but thanks for the tip. It will save me a three hours bus trip for nothing going over to the next county without wedges.  
Any idea roughly what thickness gap between the pin block and the iron frame? 1", 2", 3"? More?  
The tool kit has to fit in a backpack to go on a city bus, so a full assortment of wood is not in the plan.
 

Well,

Hopefully there is no gap between the iron frame and the pin block. The pin block should be tight against the frame from underneath.  If there is space between the block and frame the instrument would not be very tunable if at all…..

Re the action cavity, most grand pianos are pretty standard height and depth, so you could measure one where you are and that will get you close to the instrument you have to attend.
The planks shown in the photo set are 2 inches thick and the jacks are about 3  inches without being extended.

[indianajo]

Grand pianos are rare and exotic in Southern Indiana, and the churches that do have them leave the cover on and do not allow anyone without a master's degree in sacred performance or endorsement from a piano dealer as a tuner, to take the cover off.  I don't wear a tie, the church in my county that has a grand they didn't have even room for me to sit down the Christmas eve service last year. I stood in the atrium looking through the door at all the people wearing suits and ties suitable for funerals.
The only chance I have had to touch a grand is this Baldwin flower stand in the next county in the middle of a declining neighborhood,  that has one string 5 notes flat. Nobody has played it in the tenure of the current minister, and I recieved some approval by making it sound good. I went over before an organ concert, opened the cover and started playing in the dark.   I simply left out the bum note when it came up.  
Mr. Silverwood it looks like your picture had two 2x4's a foot long between the pin block and something, and another half inch of wedges.  I'll try for that as a first cut.  Wedges come in a 1" thick pack from the home store, and I have stacks of old 2x4's I can cut into foot long pieces.  
No rush, I'll probably be fooling with tuning my Steinway console and the Sohmer console with the loose pin from the factory for months.  I tend to stop a lot on jobs I'm afraid of. My best ideas of  how to do something difficult come in the middle of the night sometimes.  
I'll take a calipers over and measure the pin on this very flat note to see if it is already oversized.  I suspect the tuner didn't even go as far as changing the pin, the Steinway dealer guy's only thought on my two year old Sohmer with the sagging note was to install a humidifier in it.  In the Ohio river valley one mile from the river,  that in retrospect strikes me as perfect idiocy.  I've read Steve's website, they have adhesives, tuning wrenches with hammer buttons, oversized pins, plugs for the pinblock, and new pinblocks.  New oversized pin is just step one.    People love running big donor campaigns for new instruments: everybody is so proud of their new Yamaha pianos or Korg rubber keyboard I hardly sing anywhere anymore except little country churches still making do with a computer sound system and a neglected Baldwin Hamilton console.  

[silverwoodpianos]

I see where the photo set is not specific to your task at hand. Those photos are taken when stringing a grand, so the planks have to cover an entire section of tuning pins.
 
Pin block support is required wherever you plan to drive the tuning pin in with a punch. Without support the laminations of the pin block will break away from the bottom.

For single tuning pin replacement the planks do not have to be a foot long maybe 4-6 inches.
In the photo there are no wedges being used. That is another piece of plank. The wide angle camera lens makes it appear like a wedge.

Of course you can use a wedge system as those small jacks are expensive to purchase.
When using the wedge system fit the wedges firm but don’t drive them in hard because the key bed is underneath.  Just enough so the bottom laminations of the pin block cannot be forced down, so no space at all there.

Once you get the keyboard out of that one have a look at the bottom of the block where that one loose pin is. See if the laminations are cracking.

[indianajo]

Thanks for the tips.  The keys come out with the action?  Whoa, I'm not a very big guy, that would be a lot of weight.  175 lb age 64, and my strength has always been in my legs.  For stength training I'm lifting a 5 lb  weight four ways while I watch television. 
I'll take a mechanic's mirror over with a strong shop light and see if I can get a sight of the bottom of the pin block around the loose pin before I start removing the action.  Cracked laminations would involve another plan.  Thanks again for the heads up. 

[hfmadopter]

Thanks for the tips.  The keys come out with the action?  Whoa, I'm not a very big guy, that would be a lot of weight.  175 lb age 64, and my strength has always been in my legs.  For stength training I'm lifting a 5 lb  weight four ways while I watch television.  
I'll take a mechanic's mirror over with a strong shop light and see if I can get a sight of the bottom of the pin block around the loose pin before I start removing the action.  Cracked laminations would involve another plan.  Thanks again for the heads up.  

Hmmm, maybe 30 lbs ish. But there must be someone around the church who could help you lift it out. Also, it slides way out before you take on it's full weight. You could conceivably swing one end around and let that down on the piano bench then the other ( never tried that just saying). Be careful of hammer shanks, you don't want to jam them up and break anything.

[indianajo]

Thanks, 30 lb of action I could deal with. People standing around would just feel called upon to protect their flower stand. I might break a leg off.    "Are you a professional? Have your ever done this before? " No and NO, I do a lot of things I've never done before. Its gotten where employers don't even understand that, they can't hire anybody "qualified" anymore.  I can do everything except remember your name and face.  Working out of my car trunk with accessory junk, I can lift and support 500 lb pretty easily. 
Other than the piano bench, there is not another shelf like object for about 200 feet from this grand to set the action on, except for folding chairs.  Which are unsuitable IMHO.  
I will look at the DVD when it gets here. I've never seen inside a grand beyond peeking at the pins around the music rack. Or on television of course.  The package from Steve's is  overdue now according to what the lady said, but she did say the grandchildren were coming over for Thanksgiving.  Maybe they had to order something out of stock.  

[hfmadopter]

Thanks, 30 lb of action I could deal with.  Other than the piano bench, there is not another shelf like object for about 200 feet to set the action on, except for folding chairs.  Which are unsuitable IMHO. 
Will look at the DVD when it gets here.  Its overdue now according to what the lady said, but she did say the grandchildren were coming over for Thanksgiving.  Maybe they had to order something out of stock. 

I've placed mine on the bench. But had to resist not sitting on it, LOL !!! With that in mind I tend to place mine on the dining table now. Might I suggest sliding the bench away and then go get one of those folding chairs to sit on !

[paul678]

Get one of these:

https://www.howardpianoindustries.com/papps-treble-mute/
https://www.howardpianoindustries.com/wood-piano-treble-stick-mute/


I just got the Papp's, and it seems to work ok, but the other one might be
better for you.

Good Luck.