Just this last week, I ran into a strange problem. A note in the middle of the upper section would not repeat and sometimes would not play at all. The owner had taken out the action and found that if he moved the wippen rail back over 1/16 inch all the notes would play. Unfortunately, when he put the action back in the piano, all of the hammers blocked against the strings, but the one offending note would at least play. In desperation, I was called in to fix it. It didn't take long to see that the wippen rail was moved. The shims were still glued in, so it was simple to loosen all of the wippen rail screws and restore the rail to its correct position and retighten the screws. Unfortunately, when I did this the one note which was the problem in the first place reappeared. As I investigated further, I discovered that the repetition spring which is of the Renner type was disconnected from the silk cord glued into the back of the jack. At first I figured that the silk cord was broken, but it was not. I hooked it up again and all was well. The mystery is: How did the spring get out of the silk cord loop? I saw no evidence of a foreign object having been involved. Any ideas as to how the spring had popped out? I found one other at note 88 which was disconnected. I can't figure. Jim Coleman, Sr.
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