Squeeking rep lever springs on Tokiwa wips

[Mark Dierauf]

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Thanks for the responses, Dale & Clyde. I had considered putting
something with some more "body" in the slots, and perhaps the protek
grease is the answer. I have spoken to Bob at Pianotek about this
problem, and will again before taking the next step. I'm not sure that
I've given up on Tokiwa as a result of this, but I'm gettin' there.
Other than this, I like the parts, and love the eveness of touchweight
that I was able to get on both pianos with the adjustable helper
springs. One piano - a Mason AA with Renner wips - went from the mid
60's (grams) to the upper 40's in the middle after the switch over, and
I removed 6 lbs. of lead from the keys. The customer was beginning to
have muscular problems that limited her practice time but can now play
for hours pain-free. The other set went on my own Steinway, and even
without the springs I got better touchweight & friction numbers than
with the Renner parts. I do have problems with checking on my piano that
disappear when I swap out samples with Renner wips, though. Although
they appear identical in the important aspects, I suspect that the
Tokiwas are shortening the action spread just slightly, but I haven't
checked it yet. Can someone remind me of what the spec is for S&S action
spread?
 
- Mark
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Erwinspiano@aol.com [mailto:Erwinspiano@aol.com] 
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 11:25 AM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: Re: Squeeking rep lever springs on Tokiwa wips
 
In a message dated 12/3/2003 8:24:08 PM Pacific Standard Time,
mark@nhpianos.com writes:
  In the past year I installed two sets of "Miracle Wips", made by
Tokiwa via Pianotek. Both sets quickly developed fairly noisy squeaks
where the rep lever spring slides in the slot on the underside of the
lever. I tried clear Teflon and protek, both on the spring and in the
slot, which originally had painted on graphite. The springs are clean,
and don't appear to have any loose or missing plating or corrosion, and
I've looked with a microscope. Both pianos are in humidity-controlled
environments. Both these sets are also plagued by "Suddenly Tight
Center-Pin Syndrome" with friction jumping from 2 - 3 grams to 20 - 30
grams! After just spending several hours each on both pianos, pulling
every wip and checking/repining flanges & jacks and lubing all the
slots, the customer calls back to say: "Its baa-ack!"  Has anyone ever
run across this on any piano and found a permanent solution?
 
- Mark
     Actually I've had this squeaking on very few tokiwa parts but
solved the problem by lubing with protek grease. The tight pins syndrome
in many cases will just require re -pinning. The cause here can be A.
glue contamination B. plating on japanese pins sometimes fakes off &
clogs up felt (German ones too sometimes). C.Wood changing dimension. D.
pinned too tight to begin with & then the wood swells. E. Who could
possibly know.
   Don't be to hard on the tokiwa parts with a blanket indictment. I've
had similar problems with most parts. Contact the importer at Pacific
piano.
  Dale

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