[pianotech] Point of contact between capstan and wippen heel

david at piano.plus.com david at piano.plus.com
Tue Mar 24 02:50:26 PDT 2009


Interesting.

When this thread was taking place, I thought about some older pianos I
tune. One came to mind of a customer near here. The keysticks are "tied"
to the action by stickers.  At the bottom, the stickers are bifurcated
like a split wedge, and they each clip over a centre pin mounted in a
flange thingy on the end of the keystick.  At the top, each sticker is
fastened to the underside of the wippen by a mounting with an ordinary
type centre and centre pin.

The rocking/rolling action of such an arrangement must be quite different
from modern pianos with capstan/wipeen arrangements like those being
discussed.

Even though wippens when new have undersides offering a convex arc to meet
the smaller-radius convex arc of the capstan top, it doesnlt take long for
the cloth surface of the wippen underside to wear to a different shape,
such that in time convex capstan bears on convex wippen.

Sorry, this has probably all been said!

David.




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