Key-Capstan-Wippen Heel Alignment

Farrell mfarrel2 at tampabay.rr.com
Wed May 14 18:42:51 MDT 2008


Got an old action that I'm rebuilding (all new parts except keys, frame and rails). The treble keys are not aligned very well with the wippen and hammer flange holes in the rails. The bass has good alignment, but it gets progressively worse toward the treble.

I made a little alignment evaluation jig, which is pictured below. I have the left side aligned with #77 hammer flange hole and #77 wippen flange hole (bisecting the holes). I mark the key with pencil using the jig for alignment. The dark marks on the back edge of the wippen rail are the little gaps between the flanges - you can see how poorly the keys align with the wippen flanges.




Below I have pictured one of the capstan location marks where the capstan on key #77 would align with the center of the wippen heel. You can see how far off-center it is on the key.




A shot with C88 on the left end. C88 key is actually reasonably well aligned with the wippen/hammer rails, but the others are offset toward the bass - and not very evenly at that!



So, my question is whether anyone is aware of the best benefit-cost/effort solution to my alignment problem (short of a new keyset). This action needs to work very well. I'm thinking the best thing to do is to offset the capstan some amount (but not so much that the integrity of the capstan hole in the key is compromised - i.e., not too close to the key edge) and tolerate the capstan not being perfectly centered with the wippen (making sure the capstan isn't lifting its adjacent wippen, etc.). Appropriate compromise should not negatively impact action performance - correct? Or is there some sort of slick solution out there that I'm not aware of?

Thanks.

Terry Farrell
Farrell Piano

www.farrellpiano.com
terry at farrellpiano.com
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