Kimball regulation

[Robin Blankenship]

Frank,
As the owner and sometime pounder of almost 50-year-old Kimball console, my
hunch is that the butt leather is simply worn slick and the jack, while
having enough purchase due to geometry to activate the hammer, slides so
easily that your finger on the key does not really notice it. You may notice
some lack of real 'umph'  in the sound, also. If you find another cause,
please post it here.

Best regards,
Robin
----- Original Message -----
From: Frank Cahill <fcahill@erols.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 27, 1999 8:37 PM
Subject: Kimball regulation


>I recently regulated a kimball vertical piano.  The only problem I
>encountered was with let-off.
>
>Normally, when the hammer reaches let-off, you can feel the jack as it
>moves from under the hammer butt.  On this piano, the normal feeling was
>not there...only on a couple of key was it near normal.
>
>In the past, I've fixed this problem by increasing key height.  I tried
>it on this pinao, but it didn't help.  I even put in a 0.018 punching.
>No difference.
>
>What's going on?  Could it be that the butt leather presents very little
>friction to the butt or perhaps the edges of the jack are rounded off?
>This piano is 20 yrs old or so, but the butt leather looks very good.
>
>This was a strange piano...couldn't find a serial number and several
>keys had been trimmed down so that the width of the key around the
>balance rail was about half of what they would normally be.
>--
>
>Frank Cahill
>Associate Member, Piano Technicians Guild
>Northern Va