Julia, At 23:31 12/20/2003 -0500, you wrote: > I went to a home where there was a Chickering console piano > that the hammers return at a snail's pace after the key is struck. This must be the time for these things. Yesterday, I tuned an Acrosonic 40" which I hadn't seen since June '85 (and no other tuner had seen it either...). Sluggish hammers? You bet! At least that's what it looked like. As Keith said, you have to isolate the location of the friction. To narrow it down to keys or action, all I do is hold down the back of the keys with one hand and move the hammers to the strings with the other. Let the hammers drop, and if they drop slowly, it is in the action somewhere, if they return quickly, the problem is the keys. In this case it turned out that some key bushings had started to seize up. A touch of Protek on the bushings and some easing, and all seemed well. I then did the pitch raise up from 432 Hz, and the keys were still working properly, so I guess I fixed it. I probably won't know for sure until about June 2021. Happy Holidays Everyone! Conrad Hoffsommer Early to rise: early to bed; Makes a man healthy, and socially dead.
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