Damp Action Drying

[Susan Kline]

At 06:29 AM 9/19/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Paul McCloud wrote:
>> 
>> List:
>>  I just finished working on a Kimball console action which was almost
>> frozen due to dampness.  <snip>
>> 
>> Paul McCloud, RPT
>> San Diego, CA

Del Fandrich said, in part:
>Paul,
>
>At one time I built a box large enough to hold both grand (stack only)
>and vertical actions for this very purpose. I started out with light
>bulbs to heat things with, then switched to four fifty watt Dampp-Chaser
>rods. These were controlled by a thermostat.

Seems like a bead-blaster booth might be convertible for this purpose, and
do double duty?

>I could put an action in the box, set the thermostat and leave the thing
>for 12 to 24 hours, coming back to find a nice, free action—I learned
>early on that it was best to go gently with the thing. I learn slowly
>sometimes, but repining every center in the entire action is a great
>teacher. In those days we did not have Protek or McLube so, once the
>action was dried out I would treat everything with Wurlitzers naphtha
>and silicone mixture. 

Then there's Marcel Carey's emergency expedient for uprights in unheated
practice huts, to put the action inside a car, under the windshield ...
about 1/2 hour to playability, he said.

>Once I learned to control it, the system worked remarkably well. Even
>without treating the action centers, actions would stay quite free. I
>did used to wonder why some actions would be affected and others were
>not—there seemed to be little commonality between brand or action type
>and their propensity toward sluggishness. Two seemingly identical pianos
>in similar homes would each respond differently. Nor did I figure out
>why an action that became sluggish in just a couple of years would seem
>to work fine after treatment from then on. With or without treating the
>action centers.

I've not done anything so elaborate, but once in a while I do find that
hammer centers freed with the hair dryer don't seize up again, the way they
usually do. It's as if some variety of crud had gotten stuck to the center
pins, and once broken free it would stay free. If asked to tune a really
sluggish piano, I usually try the hair dryer first, and then start the
tuning. I can usually get a lot of it done before things grind to a halt,
and by the end of the tuning I know if the piano is one of the lucky few
that will stay playable, so I know what course of action to recommend.

You'd think that the hair dryer would total the tuning -- but this sort of
piano is usually so far out of tune I find it has little practical effect to
load it with heat at the beginning of the tuning.

I find with Kimball that you have to pay attention to the jack flange
especially, since the bushings often have too much glue on them. Just drying
won't do the trick in many cases, they must be repinned. (That was my
experience, anyway.)

Regards,

Susan



Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com


"As long as you have your feet on the ground, your head is perfectly safe in
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