Kimbal/Piano disk

[Horace Greeley]

Joe,

At 12:26 PM 11/26/99 -0900, you wrote:
>PS, I forgot to mention that there is no dag to hold the action down in the
>rear center only on the ends of the rear action. Could this be the problem
>and if so have you any suggestions as how one should make a repair of fix
>it?

We had this problem a many times in the days of the old PianoCorder systems.
Usually some nit, err, technician, unthinkingly followed the installation 
instructions
and removed significant amounts of material from the backrail of the keyframe,
often up to 1" or so.  (If one spent much time at all with those 
instructions, one
could avoid the problem altogether....but, that required taking more time 
and care
on making the initial cuts on both the keyframe and keybed.)  On some pianos,
this is not a problem, on some others, it is catasthropic.

The "fix" some of us (in the LA area) eventually came up with was to work out,
from the location of the original dags (and how that related to the feet of the
action stack) where it would be possible to install what amounted to "bridges"
between the back part of the keybed and the remaining structural areas
of the disfigured keyframe.  Usually, these "bridges" would up being made up
blocks of hardwood, glued and screwed to the keybed on the underlever side
of the cutout, and mated to corresponding blocks fit (however possible) to
the keyframe.  Often, it was even necessary to use/make/modify pieces of
hinge hardware so that the last "bridging" part was (at least) brass if not
steel.

Then for S&S and M&H (and a few others), we would glue a strip of walnut or
mahagony to the underside of the remaining backrail of the keyframe 
(immediately
adjacent to the cut away).  My preference for this strip was to start with one
about 1" wide and 1/16" inch thick, running the length of the 
backrail.  Then, to the
extent possible, go through a sort of mini-forefinishing process to 
re-establish a
semi-solid mating of the newly created backrail to the front (key front) 
side of the
cut out in the keybed.  The strip needed to be that thick to accomodate the 
way in
which the S&S and M&H keybeds were _traditionally_ planed...in opposing 
concavity.
The strip compensated (well, ok, only sort of) for this and gave you 
someplace with
which to start over.

All very much Rube Goldberg, but functional.

Sorry, I do not feel like I am describing this very well.  Does it make any 
sense?

Even with such a fix, it is often not possible to get a solid regulation 
ever again;
and, both you and your client should understand this.

Best.

Horace