Click! clack! Samick.

[Roger Jolly]

Greetings All,
               Over the last several months I have had the opportunity
to experiment on about 10 Samick or D.H.Baldwin actions to reduce many
of the obnoxious noises.
 Several solutions have been found that may be of help.

#1. This procedure will involve a full days and a halfs work.
a. Number and remove all Wippens.
b. Remove jack button felt, and replace with Baldwin unwoven button
felt.
   the factory original is a dense woven product that also has glue that 
   wicked into the material to about 50% of its thickness. Causing it
to    clack against the spoon.
c. Remove the drop button leather and replace with a quality buck skin.
   This is really noticable on instruments that are set with a wide
drop.
d. Remove the jack height button felt. I cut my own punchings from a   
strip of vertical spring rail felt. A big improvement.

 All gluing operations was done with hot hide glue.
 Reinstall and align wippens. regulate action, Check jack height and
position carefully. For jack height I like to be able to feel the jack
just kiss the knuckle on the return. but go back positively to the spoon
on a slow release.
 The action turned out to be as quiet and responsive as any of the
Japanese pianos.
 An expensive fix but well worth the effort.

#2 Take some masking tape and mark the position off the action brackets.
Remove the hammer rail. Make a chop stick neddling tool with a hammer
shank leaving about 2" of neddle exposed. You now have room to raise the
wippens so that you will have plenty of room to neddle the felt buttons.
Press the neddle laterally through the felt about 1/32" from the
surface, about 6 insertions seem to do the trick. reregulate the jack
position.
  If you have sucessfully softened the felt the jack line will move
forward about 1/16" or more. About 2 Hrs work.
  If the drop screw leather is hard replace with buck skin, or Yamaha
quality synthetic material. (can't remember the name) Use hot glue for
best results.

  I have done some experiments with both steam and alcohol and water
combinations. but they did not yield the results as the above.

Hope this is of some help.
Regards Roger