Such an enormous variety of pianos meant that the tuner had to be equipped with a very wide range of tuning-hammers. The tuning crank as used by modern tuner, comprises a threaded steel shank inserted into a wooden handle which takes one of a small range of ‘heads’ with a star-shaped hole (in most cases) which fit today’s square tuning pins at a variety of angles. The Victorian tuner was faced with oblong-headed tuning pins which could only be approached at one of two angles. Using a modern crank, the tuner can often find the pins at an inaccessible angle, the tuning of which involves the crushing of several knuckles. The use of the Victorian T-hammer makes this a lot easier, but one needs a strong wrist and careful control, since the modern tuner’s practice of resting the wrist on the top hinge of the piano is impossible with the T-hammer.
Rimbault says that:
‘considerable practice is required to gain flexibility of wrist, so as to turn the hammer by extremely minute degrees. These gradations supply the only mechanical helps of which the tuner can avail himself; and without a distinct perception of them through their various degrees it is impossible even with the finest musical ear to tune a pianoforte tolerably’.
These tuning hammers were not uniform in their apertures for the simple reason that piano makers bought wrest pins from different sources and these were not standardised. In the tuning of early square and grand pianos the tuning pins are far smaller and far more disparate in size since they were all hand-made especially for the respective makers. An advertisement from 1878 announces that:
Every tuner should have PATENT TUNING HAMMER with three keys, key spacer, toning needle, pin extractor, lengthening stud, three turnscrews, four files, in case, Price 30s. Warranted – WB Stokes, Musicsmith, Birmingham.
By 1904, the square wrest pin hitherto found mostly in German pianos had overtaken the oblong, but Fletcher & Newman’s catalogue for that year still offers quite a selection of T-hammers with a variety of different length stem, and their 80/- ‘No. 1 Tuning Kit’ still included ‘one T lever with oblong holes in two positions, two 6in. straight stems with oblong and square holes, two 5in. straight stems with oblong and square holes,’ as well as ‘two bent levers’ – what we now call ‘cranks’ – with star and square holes’. Also included was ‘one wrest pin extractor, one eye twister, and one pair of 53/4in. cutting pliers’. The ‘large tuner’s kit’ at £7 14. had, in addition to this ‘1 knife. 1 saw. 3 wood chisels. 1 cold chisel. 1 key spacer. 1 grand set off. 1 large screwdriver. 1 small screwdriver. 1 sticker hook. 2 bradawls. 1 centre bit. I key file. 1 tuning fork.’.
The tuning kit which reputedly belonged to the Broadwood piano tuner, Alexander Finlayson (who died in 1865) was far smaller, and it consisted of only the following items: set off regulator; chisel; files; saw blade; small screwdrivers and drill bits; spacer; stringing eye hook (all of these fitted into a wooden handle, the metal collar of which could be tightened to hold them securely). Independent tools included toning needles in a holder, a tuning fork, small rosewood wedge, and a small toggle clamp for bending wires or holding toning needles. Lastly – and importantly – is a small round token stamped “Broadwood” which could be exchanged for beer. Two things strike the modern tuner about this list: the absence of a tuning-crank or T-hammer with which to turn the wrest pins (these hammers often get lost or separated from the rest of the tools because of the amateur’s persistent belief that ‘I could do that job’) and the use of rosewood for a wedge, since such a hard substance would surely cause jangling as the strings which it was supposed to be blocking rattle against it (modern wedges are of felt or nylon or rubber). There is no wedge for tuning uprights in that selection of tools: often a piece of halved bamboo or a thin lath of wood or whalebone would have doeskin wrapped around each end to make a wedge to silence strings to which the tuner did not wish to listen.
As can be seen from the inclusion of implements such as saw and chisel, the tuner’s job often entailed far more than simply tuning. The saw would be used for cutting out old vellum from its slot when a vellum hinge had given way. Before centre pins (tiny steel axles) were used to link two moving pieces of action, the use of vellum was the commonest means of creating a hinge. As with rubber, vellum had a finite life and the constant stress of movement caused fatigue and ultimately a complete fracture. The introduction of centre pins rather than hinges was a boon, since they wore better, but the first use of the centre pin as in Broadwoods of around the 1870s meant that the bass, middle and treble hammers were threaded on to three long pins, rather than using individual pins on each note. This meant that to repair one hammer, the hammers of that entire section would have to be removed. (Since hammer shanks were made of light, brittle cedar and often broke, tuners often had to remove hammers in order to drill out the broken remnant of the hammer shank from the butt.)
Strings were one of the tuner’s most common repairs since the damp environment of cold Victorian houses created rust and oxidation which led to broken strings. Again, the innovation which was the hallmark of the Victorian age created occasional problems for the tuner, and the transition from hammered wrest pins to threaded was a case in point: Broadwood upright No. 64240 (c. 1876) bears the following stern warning:
Notice to Tuners. Patent pin-piece screw pins. The Pins, being screwed into the metal and wood, must not be struck with the hammer. SHOULD A STRING BREAK – Take the coil off without drawing the Pin, then turn the Pin up 1/8 and 1/16, cut the length of new wire off three inches below the Pin and insert the end in the Drilled Hole.
Broadwoods were sympathetic and realised the impact of progress on the provincial tuner who might not be au fait with the latest developments in piano design: the baton over the keyboard on a Broadwood square piano of 1830 has a label bearing a ‘Caution to Tuners: Should it be requisite to take out a Key, 1st Remove the slip of Wood on which this placed. 2nd Prefs down the Two Brafs Levers which project in front of the Hammer frame until the Hammers are raised nearly close to the strings, & 3rd. To retain them in that position, fasten the Small Bolts on each side of the Said Levers. For the Treble or Box Notes, there is a Lever and Bolt which act in a similar manner. Care must be taken in drawing out or replacing a Key to keep the further end of it close to the bottom of the case.
The wrest pin underwent changes from its oblong form to the square, as already has been mentioned, but the innovative questing minds of the Victorians were far from satisfied that perfection had been reached. In his History of the Pianoforte, Hipkins wrote:
During all this century there have been frequent endeavours to replace the simple wrest pin … by a contrivance with a screw that a watch-key, or one with very little more power, might turn; or by such an arrangement and then a secondary pressure tuning after an approximate pitch has been secured … By such means, tuning would become, it is affirmed, relatively easy … but however ingenious and reasonable these inventions may seem they have not come into general use. The professional tuners find them slow of response and tiring to the ear and patience, and the amateur is no nearer to the effective tuning of a piano, inasmuch as hand and ear have still to be trained to go together. The extremes of a pianoforte … require considerable practice to hear aright, as professional tuners know, and to tune them accurately is yet more difficult …
The English manufacturer, John Brinsmead, was one such inventor: his wrest pins were fitted with hexagonal nuts, and the pins were passed through iron fixed at right angles to the direction of the strings. The string is passed through up centre of the wrest pin, and the turning of the nuts atop the pins raises or lowers the pins, thereby raising or lowering the pitch. This method, patented by Brinsmead in 1884 necessitated yet another crank to be added to the tuner’s armoury for, although the pianos were supplied with their own cranks, these often got lost: another instance of innovation creating problems for the tuner, as well as augmenting his tool bag.
From: Gill Green MA
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