Different tech opinion on restringing quote.

I have been taking quotes as my baby grand is ready for new strings. Two piano tuners have been out to take a look and they both want about $2200, but they recommend different things re the bridges.

In this price they can not afford to adjust the plate which I think is fixed in my piano anyway. One tuner says down-bearing, while it might be off due to age (60+ years) does not need changing as the tone is fine. The other wants to raise the bridges a little with a strip of something (my bridges do not have caps to exchange) to compensate for a flattening sound-board. This tuner says while the strings are off why not?

I'm not sure who to go with. Any input from any technical minded pianists out there??

Thanks and luv yer

wants to raise the bridges a little with a strip of >something (my bridges do not have caps to exchange) to compensate for a flattening sound-board. This

Greetings, The flattening of a soundboard will not be fixed by raising the bridges. If there is one section that has collapsed, then perhaps lowering the plate in that section,(often a tricky procedure and sometimes risky), may gain enough bearing to improve the tone, but the flatness in the soundboard means that as you lower the plate, the soundboard will continue to drop, since a flat board has usually lost the ability to resist downbearing. If the tone is fine, why are you changing strings? Pinblock problems? Also, during the restringing, the bridge and agraffes, as well as the V-bar, need to be carefully attended to. Ask the techs what they are considering for that, and also, get torque readings on our existing pin-block. Regards,

Ed Foote RPT http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html Well-tempered CD's at Gasparo.com. GSCD #332, 'Beethoven In the Temperaments' GSCD #344 . 'Six Degrees of Tonality' Caution, these CD's contain pure intervals and extensive liner notes!

How about a technical minded technician? There are not many (if any) pianists with knowledge in this area.

Assuming you have *some* downbearing, the first technician is correct. All pianos lose some downbearing with age. There is no evidence this in and of itself, hurts the tone.

And if the soundboard had gone tonally bad, shimming the bridges is not going to restore it, because the problem is really at the cellular level.

Very fine sounding old pianos often have somewhat flattened soundboards. It does not seem to hurt anything.

I did talk to one European trained rebuilder who was actually very good, but he did believe in restoring crown or downbearing to 'factory specs'. As I talked to him on the subject, it seemed that his training was in building new pianos, and it was just his mindset that when he rebuilt a piano he wanted to see those factory numbers restored. But there was really no justification beyond that. So on the one hand, I saw no reason for the practice, but on the other hand he was a very fine rebuilder whom I otherwise wouldn't hesitate to recommend.

Then again, I've also met some dilettante techs not really tuned into the information resources found at the professional level, who read about issues like downbearing and get carried away thinking there is some magic specification to shoot for. There may be value to standardizing the measurments when installing a brand new board, but it just doesn't translate to restringing old pianos.

Also, I very much agree with Ed's warning to make sure your candidates are addressing the issues of bearing bars and agraffes. These are oft-neglected by unprofessional rebuilders, and are issues that can haunt you later in the form of 'funny sounds' (buzzing, etc).

Bottom line is I hope you will be able to select your rebuilder by quality. The single issue of whether or not to shim the bridge is not enough to judge by. On that issue alone, the piano will probably be OK either way.

Regards,

Rick Clark

Big thanks to Rick and Ed. You both ask good question and have me thinking why am I doing this? I told both the tuners upfront that I wanted to restring and I did not ask is it necessary? Your questions have made me think about the subjectivness of tone quality.

How do I know if my piano's tone quality is as it should be, could be, and if there is room for improvement? How do I know if it is achieved by restringing or these bridge adjustments? I'm told there is 'some' as you say down-bearing, mainly at the lower end but virtually none at the middle and top, but there is some. Maybe I was thinking to much along cosmetic lines cos the felts have all rotted away.

I know I should have asked these techs, and particularly the one who does the tuning, for an evaluation and compared what they said but that is too late now, there are no others around here.

But to summarize, I hear you saying, even if I do have it restrung there is no point in re-capping the bridges as long as the strings bear down on them, as they do, rather than float like a clothes line above them!

Thanks again, Joanna

That's a very good point. If the piano sounds fine as is, that's a lot of money to spend to get some additional brightness and a lot of tuning instability for the next year or so.

My own judgements are based on how new strings sound v bad strings. If you try different pianos in a piano store, and don't find your own piano lacking in comparison, then why restring indeed? No matter what, you *will* get more high harmonics with new strings (which most people call 'brightness' but whether this is musically valuable to you is subject to your own taste. Some people are actually irritated by the bright sound of new strings. However, they do mellow out somewhat over the first couple years.

Well- let's hold on here. When I said a piano should have *some* downbearing- that means it should have some in every section. Typically it's minimal in the middle of the board (upper bass-tenor section) but there should definitely be some, and more in the mid-high treble.

However, it's also tricky to get good downbearing measurements. Some techs use cheap rocker gauges rather than precise gauges that give you a readout in .001s of an inch (or mm). With a rocker gauge, it's easy to mistake a little downbearing for NO downbearing.

So this leaves open the question, as perhaps you have lost downbearing- but perhaps it just wasn't measured that accurately.

If it is true there is no downbearing at all, then it is a big gamble spending the money on restringing and bridge shimming. Ed has given the reasons why, you can consider them valid. If you are lacking downbearing, you should be considering a new soundboard. However this is so expensive (and hard to find good work) that it puts you in the position of comparing it to the cost of replacing the piano with a new one.

But I'll tell you from my experience, that it's very rare for a 60 year old piano to be totally lacking in downbearing. I am more suspicious it may not have been measured precisely.

Also, one should consider humidity factors. A piano will have less downbearing in low humidity conditions than high. If measurements are made at low humidity, it makes sense to correct the humidity first (42% is right for pianos), then make the measurement.

Yes, (taking the above coments into consideration) but there can be other reasons to recap the bridge- like the holes are split where the pins go in.

The real problem you are facing, as I see it, is that there are a lot of techs out there with varying levels of knowledge and experience. There are no enforceable standards in this business. Some techs are just starting out, with a DIY book, trying to hustle up business. It's probably the worst problem in the business. A lot of them seem to be attracted to restringing as a first option, for some reason. Perhaps because it's easy to understand in concept. (Though not easy to execute well in practice.)

I think it's important to find someone more 'holistic'. Someone who can outline and make clear to you the various operations that can improve your piano, and the benefits (or lack of same) to each. If the strings are blatantly bad, it may be valid to jump on restringing as a first choice. But not if there is NO downbearing in sections- which indicates deeper issues.

Do not assume that everyone who says he can restring or rebuild a piano is capable of doing a good job. In fact, most aren't. Take the time to find someone you can have a lot of confidence in. There are almost NO pianos in which restringing is the ONLY thing that will improve it. If restringing seems to be the only issue the tech is aware of, it would make me suspicious of their knowledge and experience.

Regards,

Rick Clark