Thanks for the suggestions, so far..... While griping about this to a local friend/tech on the phone last night, I mentioned that the screws were inaccessible from the front, back or sides..........but suddenly felt a little "dishonest". Why, pondered I, the "sense of shame"?
And then it "came to me": I suspect they assembled this thing with a special jig, OR put on one hammer and shank at a time ( starting in the extreme treble, if right-handed ) adjusted the jacks to that knuckle, put on the next hammer, etc., all the way to the bass...... Anywax, unless a better solution posits itself, this is how I will proceed, after making a pattern of the shank positions on the hammer rail.
Peace, Thumpe
Euphonious Thumpe
--- On Tue, 5/12/09, Joe DeFazio <defaziomusic at verizon.net> wrote:
From: Joe DeFazio <defaziomusic at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [pianotech] HELP! (Please.) How do you adjust jacks on rocker caps in an old square???
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2009, 1:14 AM
From: Euphonious Thumpe <lclgcnp at yahoo.com>
Date: May 11, 2009 7:43:50 PM EDT
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: [pianotech] HELP! (Please.) How do you adjust jacks on rocker caps in an old square???
Reply-To: pianotech at ptg.org
Thumpe is STUMPED!
Patient: early Stieff square.
Problem: too much lost motion, OR jacks not returning under knuckles due to too LITTLE lost motion. So I wish to adjust jack height under knuckles. Jacks on rocker caps.
Ultra-frustrating factor: the screws for the rocker caps are DIRECTLY under the hammer rail, and INACCESSIBLE,from any angle, with any tool I can conceive of!!!!!!!
HELP, PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
( Monetary reward for best answer!!!!!!! )
Thumpe
Hi Gordon,
I faced this problem with a Steinway Square some years back. After searching the archives, I found a recommendation to drill access holes through the hammer rest rail. I *think* the idea may have come from Joe Garrett. On the square I did, I believe that the rear rocker screw was accessible behind the rail, but the front one was not, so I drilled the holes directly above the front rocker capstan screws. The action was in the shop for reconditioning (replacing all of the fragile cords connected to the jack springs, and the like), so it was no problem to remove the hammers (which were coming off for friction adjustments anyway) while drilling out the rail. In the field, this is not feasible, of course.
You can try the four-sided cubic screwdriver (yes, I know that a cube doesn't have four sides, at least in three-dimensional space) that presumably is the one Jon Page recommends. However, on occasion I have had trouble getting it into the space between the rail and the rocker capstan, or trouble turning screws with it without damaging backchecks or other action parts. Maybe it would be easy if I worked on squares every day, but I certainly do not.
Here's a picture showing the holes in the rail (just to the right of the green hammer-rail cloth, which I think I cut to be more narrow instead of drilling through, if I recall):
Good luck with it,
Joe DeFazioPittsburgh
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