Mike: You are obviously a much nicer guy than I am. I should follow you around and learn some things I'm sure. If I had encountered this I'd say "call Steinway and have them fix it under warranty". If the cause is as you say, it's a design problem and they'll never know about it until they see it for themselves. Since it is under warranty I wouldn't feel right charging the customer for the repair, and yet doing work for free is not a good option either. dp David M. Porritt, RPT dporritt at smu.edu -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Mike Spalding Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 5:15 PM To: Pianotech Subject: [pianotech] singing sustain, what to do? Relatively new small Essex grand. When the sustain pedal is operated very slowly, it makes a moaning noise. Removed the action, removed the pitman, and raised the tray by hand, heard the noise. Here's what I think is causing it: the lift tray is aluminum, the felt is soft and thick, and the tray pivot is nowhere near the underlever centers. So when the tray is lifted, the underlevers slide on the felt, playing the aluminum tray like a violin. What to do? My inclination would be to replace the tray felt with something harder/smoother, and polish the undersides of all the underlevers with 400 grit sandpaper or finer. But before going to all that trouble, I thought I would toss the question out to the list, and see if anyone else has encountered this, and what you did to fix it. Any thoughts? thanks Mike Spalding
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