This story has a happy ending. I brought my levels and square, and the cabinet and keybed are not distorted in any way: no twisting or warping. The keybed has tubular steel supports in a grid underneath; you could probably stand on it! This grid attaches to the plate with two screws. Both were tight, but I noticed the washer moving freely on one of them, so I added another washer. Don Mannino sent me the alignment instructions. Turn down the middle support bolts, and start with the end bolts. Set the treble height for the best tone, as on grands (I'm going to remember this for pianos with a weak high treble!). Set the bass height for the best fit of hammers to strings. Hint: mute each string of bichords, one at a time, to test for equal volume. Eyeballing may not be good enough. Then, turn up the middle supports just to even things out. Bend down the upper action bolts to be snug in the U-brackets. I lowered the treble height a few mm (C8 was hitting right at the termination), and when I put the keys in, the top six or so were sitting off the rest rail in a nice descending curve. I lowered the key capstans, and those notes played nicely. The bass still had a very shallow dip. So, I took a breath and prepared for a full regulation. To start key level, I went back to the top and adjusted the capstans to remove any lost motion. By the time I got to middle C, there was so much adjustment to do that I was taking the keys out to make a turn or two. From about C3 on down, I was raising them six full turns! (See picture). Amazingly, the keys came back to level, and most notes played fine. I really feel like a dodged a bullet on this one! I'll make a followup visit to tweak damper and hammer alignment and dip, but I'm just pleased how close it came out. And I'm still mystified how this could have happened! My best theory is that a strong downward jolt caused the bass action bracket support bolt to get buried further into the wood block it screws into. But how did that create 1/4" of lost motion in the key capstans?!? Thanks for all the help. --Cy-- Cy Shuster, RPT Albuquerque, NM www.shusterpiano.com www.facebook.com/shusterpiano SNC00034 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20110913/7df99d18/attachment-0001.htm> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: SNC00034.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 40962 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20110913/7df99d18/attachment-0001.jpg>
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