wippen remove/replace with lost motion compensator rod

[Dave Nereson]

    Never encountered this before, but was working on a 1907 A.B.Chase
upright with a beautiful and very well made Wessel, Nickel & Gross action.
This action has a "lost motion compensator rod", which, when using the soft
pedal, lifts the wippens by means of little "counter-levers" (or whatever
they're called) and is attached by a lifter rod to the hammer rail.  So when
the soft pedal is used, it doesn't introduce a lot of lost motion.  The
action also has a sostenuto mechanism (a stretched cord that catches tabs on
the bottom of the damper levers) that extends up to about key #60.
    I was aligning backchecks to catchers, holding the wippens with a
parallel pliers so as not to stress the wippen pinning.  But I grabbed one
too low and broke those thin "fins" between which the counter-levers are
pinned.  (Many uprights have the same type wippens, but the sticker is
pinned in the thin slot formed by those little fins or wings or tabs or
whatever they're called).  Being in two pieces now, the wippen/sticker
assembly came out of the action no problem.  I glued the fins back on
(miraculously), repinned the sticker, and tried to put the assembly back in.
Now, I have the same action in my old upright at home, but without the
sostenuto, and I have removed and replaced wippen/sticker assemblies in it
without having to dismantle or unpin anything.  But on the action I was
working on, some dimensions must have been different, because there was just
no way to get that assembly back in.  I unhooked the lost motion compensator
rod and let it drop down.  Not enough clearance.  Thought of unscrewing the
sticker rail and letting it hang, but it wouldn't have done any good.  (The
sostenuto mechanism was not a problem or in the way).  But no matter how the
wippen assembly was positioned, the l.m. compensator rod wouldn't let me get
the wippen low enough for the damper spoon to go under the main action
rail -- not and still get the jack up under the let-off rail.  The l.m.
comp. rail has four hangers, or swings, like a hammer rail or damper lifter
rod -- three facing right, and one left.  Tried to bend the one facing left
with a key spacing tool so I could remove the rail.  No dice.  Just too
heavy a gauge of steel, and much stiffer than hammer rail swings.  Maybe
with a long-handled backcheck bending pliers, but didn't have mine with me.
What to do?
    I ended up loosening three screws of the regulating rail (let-off), so I
could lift it high enough to clear the tip of the jack, and still had to
turn the button all the way up and it still just barely went, almost tearing
off the let-off punching.  This would not have worked in other spots on the
action because the let-off rail will only lift so far before it hits the
action brackets.  The only other way would be to remove the whole let-off
rail (what a pain), install the wippen, re-install the rail, then check the
let-off again (which I of course had already regulated).  Another
possibility I thought of was to install the wippen first, then insert the
sticker behind the l.m. comp. rod, and try to pin the sticker to the wippen
"in place", but it was a real iffy proposition, and no room for a pinning
tool.  This also would not have worked if the wippen was right near an
action bracket.
    Has anybody dealt with this?  It's a Cadillac of an action in all other
respects.  I can't believe they left no easy way to remove and replace
wippen/sticker assemblies without dismantling half the action.        --Dave
Nereson, RPT, Denver