This is the third in a series of articles about the structural piano parts that must be in good condition in order for a piano to hold a tuning. Those structures are the piano pin block, the piano soundboard, and the piano bridges. In the last two articles, your piano Tuner Wilmington DE discussed the pin block and the soundboard. This article will discuss the bridges.
The bridges of a piano are hardwood structures that attach the strings to the soundboard. they are usually made of maple. You can find them on a grand piano by looking near the far end of the strings. You will see a piece of wood about two inches wide and two inches high that is between the strings and the soundboard. If you look carefully, you will see that the strings kink slightly as they go over the bridges. That kink is designed to stop the string from vibrating at that location, so that only the part of the string from the bridge forward will sound, and the portion from the bridge to the plate is silent. That kink is created by small “bridge pins” inserted into the piano bridges. Because of the high tension on the strings, there is considerable force transmitted into the wood of the bridges at these pins, and sometimes the wood cracks. If the wood is cracked, then the pin can move toward the crack, and the string will no longer hold the tension properly. Such a piano will not hold a tuning, and the repair runs in the thousands of dollars. Such a repair is usually done only on a top quality piano, or a lesser quality piano to which a family has a large emotional attachment.
When purchasing a piano, this is one of the the three most important structures to have checked. When you need a piano tuning Wilmington DE or in the Philadelphia area or if you need to have a piano assessed before a purchase, your piano tuner Wilmington, Kenneth Keith Piano Services, is the registered piano technician to call.
