Riddle Anyone?

[A440A@aol.com]

Greetings all,

     It was one of those great days,  a fellow tech had called for advice on
the Yamaha action he was trying to regulate, after he  had spent three days
trying everything to make it work, and no luck.  He brought it over to my
shop so we could both figure on it.  I found the problem by the time he came
back in from the car. (Sadly, not through brilliance, but I had spent some
time earlier on the identical problem, so knew where to look).

1.  Yamaha G-2,  approx 10 yr. old
2.  heavily filed hammers, but not at all past usable
3.  Tefloned and bolstered knuckles, ( he had put several strips of yarn
through each).
4.  Pinning was fairly loose, but not wobbly
5.  all felts,  balancier (repetition lever),  adjustment, drop leather, etc.
 were in good shape
6.  graphited surfaces in good condition

Problem:

      Excessive spring pressure was needed to return the jacks,  and even
then excessive height on the balancier was required, and several notes would
skip.
      When the action train was set to the factory nominal specs, there was a
profound loss of repetition.  Only when the spring was set quite strong, and
the mortise was at least .015 above the top of the jack, would the piano
repeat well enough, but it felt terrible!!

Clues:

1.  He did a beautiful job of filing hammers and bolstering the knuckles,
 aside from that and turning the adjustment screws, he had done nothing else
in the action.
2.  The action was all factory original, rails were in the proper place
3.  The repair required two hours and when finished, there was approx. 200%
more rep. spring tension, (hammers flew!)
4.  The spring groove, (grub) was well lubricated



Riddle:  What was the repair that made all the difference?

Oh yeah,  it is a church piano....

If the list doesn't care for this type of quiz, lemme know.



Ed Foote
Precision Piano Works
Nashville, Tn