Making a piano tuning lever

"us" :-)

Yes, but which one? Bach or Mozart? Bach kept his favourite organs (no smutty interruptions here, please) tuned to A=480 whereas the keyboards that Mozart was working with later that century were generally tuned anywhere between A=400 and A=450.

Nick

I stripped a piano down at school, which had spent a few months being drenched everytime it rained during the summer holidays, before anyone noticed it was written off. I took all the lead weights out of the keys, and used them in the Meccano clock kit I was building (which I still have).

I think my parents' piano is standing on those, and I remember lots of them under furniture in my grandparents house.

A bit late now, but should have warned you there's about 40 tonnes force across a piano frame, generated by the strings. If it breaks, it can explode causing bad injuries. Some years ago when piano smashing contests were popular, occasionally the strings weren't slackened off first, and injuries resulted.

...Just a _bit_ late - this was about 50 years ago! Actually I did slacken off all the strings...

I've managed to make a square hole in mild steel simply by heating it up red hot and driving a hardened steel spike into the end.

Here's the steel being heated in the forge, and the hole:

Here is the hole being made, and the tools to make the hole - a small round one to start with and the larger square one that I made to match the piano pins:

hole:

hole:

However, I'm not too optimistic about its prospects for making the piano do exactly what you want to achieve!

hole:

Thanks. My initial desire is to get the notes on the right to play higher than the notes on the left. That is not the case at the moment!

I found a business card used as packing underneath the support for the keyboard. It's for "Fredk. B. Howell" who was a proprietor of Howell Bros & McAhan of Dunedin NZ, piano manufacturers and inporters. The company dates around 1890. Mr Howell did make hundreds of pianos but my one was imported from the Everard Piano Co of London.

I thought the tool in question was called a "Tuning Hammer", but I have no idea why.

I think you are in New Zealand, maybe it's a regional UK or European thing.

I have seen it called a tuning hammer but I refuse to call it that because it's a stupid name. Just another piece of jargon invented by people who want their craft to seem mysterious and difficult and needing a lifetime of training, i.e. to keep out d-i-yers like us.

My piano was about three notes flat so I have now tuned it to A=440, and will wait until it settles down before fine tuning. I can now play Bach's Jesu on it.

Electronic tuning meters certainly appear to make tuning strings somewhat easier than working off the harmonics of other strings. I have one on my phone that can display the notes and frequencies and its free.