[CAUT] Friday puzzler: Won't play on hard blow

Fri Oct 29 19:45:19 MDT 2010

Really fascinating, but no, neither wedged f. o. nor seized center pins.

Alan E.

-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Kline <skline at peak.org>
To: caut <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Fri, Oct 29, 2010 11:32 am
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Friday puzzler: Won't play on hard blow

              Okay, Alan 

    A long shot --- is something wedged under the adjusting button for    the rep lever, back in the back of the wippen? So that the rep lever    is forced too low in front to support the knuckle? I had that once    -- note would play sort of out of habit on moderate blows, bouncing    back onto the jack top on return, till a hard blow would get the    jack in front of the knuckle, pressed against it. The hammer at that    point was lower than rest position, what a dismal sight. Jouncing    around the key a few times would eventually free the jack. It had me    going till I saw a great big fat oversized paper clip lodged under    the button. 

    But two in the same piano?

    In a way, it was like having a seized rep lever center pin, so that    the lever is stuck too low, and the jack "sticks its tongue out." 

    Well, I suppose that means my guess is "seized rep lever center    pins." The old fragmenting center pin plating (Asian flu) problem.    If that's what it is, and you have two, you will have more later on,    till you repin every sucker one of them.

    Susan Kline

    On 10/29/2010 2:47 PM, reggaepass at aol.com wrote:    

                        This                          is more fun than I thought it would be.  I've                          posted this puzzler on both lists and the two                          groups are at about the same point (if you                          remove Ed Sutton's formidable contributions                          from the mix, anyway).  To review for one and                          all, the instrument in question is a                          mainstream grand piano of relatively recent                          vintage.  The answer is neither of the first                          two things that came to the minds of so many                          of us, cheating jack and too-close back check                          (sounds like a country music duo, don't it?).                           Nor is it a broken keystick or any of Ed                          Sutton's deeper speculations (on the CAUT                          list) about flexing balance rails and broken                          keybeds (man, Ed, you have seen some pretty                          interesting stuff!).  Also, it is not                          Catastrophic Action Failure--remember, it is                          not a repeated note thing--or a foreign                          object.

Time for                          more information:  There are two problem                          notes, one in the bass and one in the lower                          treble.  The worse one is in the bass,                          probably because of the greater mass of the                          hammer (compared to the other one).  When                          these notes won't play on a hard blow, one of                          their neighboring hammers moves slightly.

Going                                kayaking--back later,                              

Alan                                E.

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