old Kimball brass flange rail/damper lever removal

Tvak@aol.com Tvak@aol.com
Tue, 30 Nov 2004 22:58:26 EST


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List

Two questions in one day!   Sorry to take up the bandwidth.

The suspect: a family heirloom Kimball upright from the 1890/1900s.   

The piano has a brass hammer/damper lever flange rail.   I know that these 
can become brittle over time.   This piano needs its dampers replaced, but I 
wonder how risky the removal of the damper levers (to scrape off the old felts) 
will be?   There are no problems with the brass rail right now.   I did have to 
replace one brass hammer butt plate which had cracked, but the brass rail is 
fine, so far.   I just wonder about the stress of screwing in and out the 
damper lever flanges.   Never having worked on one of these, I'd love to hear from 
someone who has had experience in this area.   

Now secondly, and more embarassingly: how the heck do you remove the damper 
levers on this beast?   I'm hoping someone is familiar with this setup because 
it's hard to describe.   I've seen two pianos like this in the last six 
months, so maybe someone out there knows about this.   The screw for what I assume 
is the damper lever flange seems to be inside a little window in the lever, 
facing up, not out, so there is no way to get a screw driver in there to loosen 
the screw.    It's right where an old Steinway damper lever would have it's 
little screw and plate, but instead, there's this hole in the wood, and inside 
are a couple of little metal rods, and there's the screw.   You can see it in 
profile, because it's facing straight up, in the same direction as the length of 
the lever.   I hope someone out there knows what I'm talking about!

I honestly didn't spend a whole lot of time looking at it.   Only long enough 
to think, here's something new.   Or I should say, old.   Really old.    Then 
the owner asked me what condition the piano is in, and what needed replacing. 
  Now, I'm faced with the possibility of having to figure out how to remove 
those damper levers.   And, possibly replace the brass rail, too, if it comes 
down to that.   

Thanks in advance for any advice,

Tom Sivak
Chicago PTG Associate   


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