[pianotech] Steinway L rebuild question

[David Love]

The cushion felt appears too thick.  You won't have luck compressing them.
You'll have to remove the red felt strip and (if not glued to the underfelt)
peel the underfelt if it's the layered type.  If not then take it off with a
sharp chisel and glue on new felt cushions of the appropriate thickness.
After market parts do come with some problems.  

 

David Love

www.davidlovepianos.com

 

From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of pianolover 88
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 2:08 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: [pianotech] Steinway L rebuild question

 

Hello all,

I'm rebuilding a Steinway L, circa 1962, and I just finished replacing all
the wipps, hammers, shanks, flanges. All these parts are Tokiwa, and I must
say I'm pretty happy with the quality and fit. For the hammers I went with
abel encore naturals, since I've used these before on S&S and was very
pleased, I did the same here.

My question has to do with regulating strike distance to 1 3/4". As we know,
many pianos have an adjustable rebound rail. We also know that Steinway does
NOT. Each rebound cushion is part of the wippen, and does not have a
separate up/down adjustment. The reason I bring this up, is that now with
all new action parts in place, I find that I must lower the hammers all the
way down, firmly resting on the cushions, but that still only yields about
1.5" strike distance. I did bench regulate about a half an octave just to
see how it responded at the shortened SD, and it seemed perfectly fine, but
I'd like to get it to proper specs.

I realize that new parts need breaking in, and the new knuckles will also
compress. I tried compressing a few of the cushions by pressing down on them
for about 10 seconds, and that put me almost to 1 3/4", but they will likely
puff up again. So I placed a box of jiffy weights along the tops (see pic)
of a few of them, and if I leave for a day or so, do you think this will
compress them enough to allow for proper strike distance, and possible even
enough to actually get the shanks at least a bit off the cushions? Or is
this not a good idea? 

Thanks in advance for any help on this issue.

Cheers!

Terry Peterson
Accurate Piano Service
 <http://unigeezer.com/> UniGeezer.com
"Over 50, and not "2" Tired!" 







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