<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Re: [CAUT] Funny Noises</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> On 1/25/05 2:13 PM, "Ken Zahringer" <Zahr= ingerK@missouri.edu> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE> In looking at the = flange, I noticed a small black line on the underside of the nose of the fla= nge.  Aha! The jack was hitting the flange, and left a graphite mark! &= nbsp;I replaced the hammer, and looked at it some more.  For some reaso= n, the tip of that flange was a little lower that its neighbors, as were som= e the other clicking notes.  I didn’t want to mess with key dip, = since I just barely had enough, so I played around with shimming the flange.=  I ended up putting some travel paper under the back side of the flang= e (opposite the drop screw) crossways, only on the vertical part of the very= back part of the groove.  I wish I could draw a picture!  Any way= , the result was to move the flange back, and raise the drop screw end as it= rode up on the rail.  Of course, this necessitated readjusting the cap= stan, letoff, and drop.  After that, no more click on the bench!  =  Almost home! </BLOCKQUOTE> Hi Ken,     Exactly what I had experienced in regard to my earl= ier post (though not including the sostenuto click). When I wrote earlier I = couldn’t quite pull all the details to mind, but later in the day it c= ame back to me. That vintage of Steinways had some “issues” with= consistent drilling of the hammer rail. I’ve run across a few later w= ith the same problem: flanges not in a single plane, but canted up and down,= sometimes quite a lot. This being observed upon the installation of brand n= ew parts. And I have shimmed as you described, front or back as needed.     The first time I ran across it, it was a D, and a p= ianist using it for a recording session was complaining. Sure enough, after = much back and forth I found that tell-tale black line on the bottom of selec= t flange tips. In “normal” use, those jacks “couldn’= t” get that high, or that far back, or so it seemed. But in use, parts= move farther than you think possible. (BTW, Don Mannino’s super slo-m= o of the Kawai black action is amazing in what it shows that you never see. = The number of times a jack will bounce against the knuckle on the return is = incredible. Who’da thunk?)     So anyway, you might find that you’ve saved y= ourself a service problem down the road in addition to solving the issue tha= t was the “real” problem. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico </BODY> </HTML>