Grand damper felt alignment

[BobDavis88@aol.com]

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In a message dated 3/22/2003, kpiano@goldrush.com writes:

> Damper felts on a Baldwin grand. I cut the felts and set them in order in a
> tray. All square cuts on this one. Sitting at the piano, the glue pot,
> dampers and felts to the left, I grab the damper, turn it over, brush on 
> the
> glue, set the felts into the glue quick. A little fuss with alignment, turn
> it over, make sure, then a quick, firm, press. Knock off the squeeze and 
> put
> the damper in place. Of course I've loosened all the screws and checked the
> hole with a drill bit. At this point I have about 15 to 30 sec to push the
> felt around with the tip of a screwdriver. This aligns the head with the
> string and makes the front and back edge look the same. 

I don't like to put the dampers in to use the string as a guide. The head 
might not be perfectly aligned to the string, and I want to fix that 
separately, later. I leave the dampers out until the glue dries. Alignment of 
the felt front to back and side to side can be best done as in the first part 
of your note. Before the felt is cut, be sure to mark one side of it (on the 
surface which is to be glued), and keep all the marks to the same side. That 
way, if the felt is not perfectly symmetrical (hah) it will still match front 
to back. Then, the eye and fingers are best gauges of alignment, while the 
felt and head are still in your hand. If you have some which are trichord 
wedges front and back, you can set a knife blade in the center slots to align 
if it makes you feel better, but it shouldn't be necessary.

The damper heads might now not align with the strings, but you want to fix 
that anyway - at least the felt is aligned with the head.

Bob Davis

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