George Steck Grand Oddity

[Michael Magness]

On 10/27/07, pcpoulson at sbcglobal.net <pcpoulson at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> While we're on the subject of odd pianos, I am working on a George Steck
> baby grand with an action that is new to me. It has a spring loaded lever
> assembly that rotates the wippens forward when a pedal is depressed,
> causing
> the hammers to rise with out introducing any lost motion. This duplicates
> the soft pedal action on an upright. Interesting idea, but it makes
> regulating the action a challenge, particularly when levelling  and
> setting
> dip.
>    The other oddity, which I noticed in another Steck baby grand several
> years back, is that the drop screw end of the wippen levers rub the hammer
> rail, to the point that the levers bind and prevent the wippens from
> returning to the rest position. On both pianos I wound up having to rout
> out
> the back of the hammer rail with a Dremel tool to gain sufficient
> clearance.
> On the first piano someone in the past had tried to get clearance by
> shimming the rail, with little success. Any one have a better way of
> dealing
> with these issues?
> Thanks,
> Patrick C. Poulson
> Registered Piano Technician
> Piano Technicians Guild
>
>
I had a similar problem with the repitition levers on a small Kimball grand
I was redoing, I was replacing flanges and shanks to get rid of the pear
shaped knuckles on the beast.  I noticed after I removed all of the old
flanges that several of the repetition levers would catch on the back edge
of the hammer flange rail. I just removed the rail from the action and ran
it through my jointer a couple of times removing about 1/8" of material from
the back edge, then shimmed it back to original position. That
area has makes no difference to the geometry of the action but sure made
those levers clear better.
I've got a little Steck coming up soon I'll have to look for those things
you mentioned.

Mike
-- 
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing
is to not stop questioning.-- Albert Einstein



Michael Magness
Magness Piano Service
608-786-4404
www.IFixPianos.com
email mike at ifixpianos.com
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