Pianotech

  • 1.  Bluthner voicing protocols?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 01-27-2020 21:03
    Hi all,

    Does anyone know where to find Bluthner voicing protocols? I found the regulation protocols on their site but nothing about voicing. 

    Maybe they are voiced like compression/tension hammers? I am assuming so since Abel sounds like they make them or at least they can re-felt the moldings for you. But there are details that give me pause like the shape of their molding tip adding to the tonal characteristic. 

    Daniel

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    Daniel Achten
    Chattanooga TN
    423-760-2458
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  • 2.  RE: Bluthner voicing protocols?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-09-2020 15:35
    Greetings,

    Is this a modern piano (which probably would not be having refelted hammers )? At anyrate, there may be a voicing protocol inside the factory where everyone knows each other and questions can get answered right at a piano. But I can't see them "posting it" (although Stwy does that), not knowing of those following this, who can do a proper job. It's reasonable that they might leave that part out of the service manual, and leave it up the individual after-market tech to follow up their own. Voicing really is personal.

    The only protocol is what gets the best and most durable voicing. ("If it doesn't work, then it didn't need it.") If you find them behaving like Abel hammers, then that's your approach.

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    William Ballard RPT
    WBPS
    Saxtons River VT
    802-869-9107

    "Our lives contain a thousand springs
    and dies if one be gone
    Strange that a harp of a thousand strings
    should keep in tune so long."
    ...........Dr. Watts, "The Continental Harmony,1774
    +++++++++++++++++++++
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Bluthner voicing protocols?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-09-2020 19:11
    Thanks William,

    I need to double check the date. My customer claimed it was almost a century old but I should confirm that. If so, the action has clearly had some reconditioning. 

    And Ya, your suggestion will have to be my approach. Even with Steinway, Kawai etc that post some sort of protocol I still have to explore what "really" works. I just hung new hammers on a NY Stwy D and had to voice them different than usual. Way less juice than I usually need to use and almost no needles whatsoever. I used a checkering file across the crowns like the compass needle and ball p hammer approach. Any needling or hardening according to the "book" killed power and dynamics with this piano. 

    I was was just hoping to have some kind of pathway to begin with on this piano. 

    Thanks again for your comments!

    Daniel

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    Daniel Achten
    Chattanooga TN
    423-760-2458
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    Original Message