jack hitting h.flange

[Gary Mushlin]

Tom,

Our piano did not have a problem with either hammer flanges or wippen
flanges being out of line. I've heard of problems like this. It was one of
the first things we checked.

In fact, there was really nothing else wrong with the piano that would
justify making a major project out of the whole thing. We simply glued a
vertical butt felt square in front of the repetition lever window where the
original thin felt was. The regulation was therefore preserved as was the
artist's liking. If I was pressed into "fixing" this any further (because I
found a significant problem justifying such a measure), I would pull out a
replacement wippen from either my Renner or Tokiwa parts kit and compare
with the Steinway part already installed. My guess is that either
replacement part would work better than the original part.

The thicker felt solution appears also to be Steinway's "official" fix for
the problem, according to Eric Schandel, the Steinway technician. This is
also a great fix for the technician who:
1. Has 124 other pianos needing attention;
2. Has other duties that the CAUT Workload Guidelines developers most likely
would not even dream of including in the formula;
3. Is grossly underpaid.

Sincerely,
Gary Mushlin, M.M.E., R.P.T.
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 19:43:11 -0500
> From: "Thomas D. Seay, III" <t.seay@mail.utexas.edu>
> Subject: Re: jack hitting h.flange
> 
> One of the things that can cause inconsistency from note to note is
> the drilling of the holes for the hammer flange and/or wippen rail
> screws. As we know all too well, these holes can wander to the front
> or back of a center line, sometimes dramatically.
> 
> If a hammer flange, because of the irregular placement of the hole,
> is out of position relative to the other flanges, it might cause the
> problem you describe. A solution, albeit a crude and temporary one,
> is to enlarge the hole in the flange and move the flange back to
> where it is supposed to be. This will sometimes correct the problem.
> Another fix is to shim the top of the wippen flange 1 mm or so, thus
> moving the wippen slightly backwards, sometimes providing just enough
> clearance to stop the click but not enough to radically change things.
> 
> All of these problems, of course, can be corrected during a rebuild
> by replacing the rails. John Dewey does a very good job of cleaning
> up the spacing and alignment problems when replacing rails.
> 
> Tom Seay
>