maddening dampers

[Newton Hunt]

Well, location does matter, considerably.

In two ways.

If you are talking about a damper at a break then likely the damper is
not located, along the length of the string, to be effective.

And the damper felt may not be sitting in an optimum location.

Well, actually they are the same point.

The whole idea of damping is that the damper is on or at or near as many
anti-nodes as possible.  A part of the whole formula is weight, spring
pressure and resilience.  There is a critical point of the mass of the
damper lever, head, felt where it helps suppress vibration.  Springs
help also, that is why they are found in grand damper levers and the
resilience of the felt is paramount.  That may well be why you got
better damping with new felt.

But above all is location.

Example.  A customer had a Knabe where the bass did not mute at all
well.  After doing the action, new hammers, shanks and regulation, I
started on the dampers, all the while trying to figure out why they were
not working.  So, I played games.  I use a mute strip to mute out the
entire bass except one in the middle of the section.  With that damper
in I put some felt on the strings and moved it around until I got the
best muting location.  In this case the felt wanted to be about 3/16"
extended beyond the block.  So, I made a little jib and glued the whole
set on that way.  I looked a little funky but real neat and those little
puppies WORKED.  Very nice sounding piano.

So, one or both segments of felt may be mislocated, you may well wish to
use trichord felt there or you may wish to peel a thin layer of felt off
a flat to get a horizontal and vertical component of suppression.

Or you may wish to go from two pieces to one piece, or you may wish
to...

The possibilities are rather wide, the point is to experiment and
something think inside and outside the envelope.

Lots of luck.

		Newton