[CAUT] Friday Puzzler

[Paul T Williams]

Hi Ed.

I toiled in my pea-brain over the weekend your very statement....would it 
make any difference?  I think it would, but for the labor involved to fix 
a practice grand, I'm thinking the return isn't there.  I'm just glad to 
figure it out what was wrong...with all of you good people's inputs.  If 
this were a concert instrument, I most certainly would have done the 
reconfiguration needed.

Thanks
Paul




From:
"Ed  Sutton" <ed440 at mindspring.com>
To:
<caut at ptg.org>
Date:
08/01/2009 02:10 PM
Subject:
Re: [CAUT] Friday Puzzler



I second Fred's advice.
You may need to do some carving on a few flanges, or wallow out the screw 
hole for clearance.
Given the overall condition of the action you describe, would it make any 
difference?
Ed S.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Fred Sturm 
To: caut at ptg.org 
Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Friday Puzzler


On Aug 1, 2009, at 9:55 AM, Paul T Williams wrote:

I think it is indeed the screw holes in the rail.  For fun, I just screwed 
in the screws with no wippen on these 3 samples I took off.  Well, what do 
you know...the screws are at different heights!   

Is there a way to remedy this, or am I stuck.  Is this a replaceable part? 


Paul 
By "heights" I assume you mean with the stack seated on its "legs" (normal 
position), facing the wippen rail, you can see that the screws are out of 
line with one another (up and down relative to a straightedge anog the 
rail). What you would expect if the screw holes were either not in a 
straight line, or drilled at varying angles. Is this what you are seeing? 
If so, it sounds familiar (I have a number of 1960s S&S grands with badly 
drilled rails). 
Yes, you can replace the rail (or have it replaced). But I'm not sure that 
is necessary, especially for a wippen rail on an M. I would simply find 
the worst ones (up and down) and deal with them individually. Place a shim 
(sticky paper, like for travel) on the bottom of the flange in a right 
angle alignment - in line with the row of screw holes -  at the front or 
back of the flange depending which way you want it to tilt to account for 
the screw hole problem. Meaning the paper is in one of the curved parts of 
the flange bottom. See if that is enough (maybe two thicknesses). I have 
found I often needed to relieve the top of the flange at an angle so the 
screw top didn't overcome the effect of the paper.
I have never bothered with the wipp rail, just the hammer rail. I'm not 
sure the effects are enough to be worth the trouble, in a practical world.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu
"I am only interested in music that is better than it can be played." 
Schnabel




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