New Wurlitzers

[Avery Todd]

Roger,

   Thanks for the post.

>         They have made great strides in the last year. Soft felt on the
>jack spoon buttons, click gone. Better quality drop button leather, click
>gone. Better quality knuckles, click gone.

   The only click I had to find was the back end of the key hitting hitting
the support block for the action stack at the bass/tenor break. The wood
piece there is unnecessarily wide. There is *very* little clearance for the
keys at most of those breaks.

>They have finally figured out what the
>wip assist springs do, and are now regulating them. I'm still lobbying for
>the damper timing.  As a fast fix just give the lifter spoons a tweek
>upwards, usually this will time them correctly and make the action feel
>100% better.

   I just didn't have time to do any of the regulating stuff. It was more
important at the time to get them tuned and the damper rings fixed.

> I have built a special gig that is screw adjustable that fits under the
>under levers to get them all perfectly level this I set so the lever
>capstan screw is in the mid position and 1/16" of play. To get this to
>happen I usually find that I have to trim some length off the bottom of
>some of the damper wires.
>The next step, I place the action on the bench and readjust the jig to be
>1/8" higher than the lifter felt, place the jig back in the piano and set
>the spoons, this proceedure will give you perfect damper lift time.
>Remember to reset the capstans by blinking the pedal.

   Sounds like some good ideas for me to explore if I continue working on
these. Thanks. Your jig sounds similar to the one Bill Spurlock wrote about
in the PTJ back several months ago.

>A very nice budget piano, that gives a great bang for the buck.  The C173
>is based on the R scale, and if it is preped well is one of the best value
>for money buys in the industry.

   With my limited experience (so far) I agree. Thanks again.
>Glad you like the changes.
>Regards Roger.

   I also want to ask about the new Chickerings from Baldwin. There was only
one at the sale and I didn't like it at all. Particularly the bass section.
It tended to sound like the old 'stick with a string mounted on a washtub'
bass sound. Really pretty bad. Do you have any experience with these?
   I noticed that it also has the acu-just hitch pins. I'm wondering if
they were set correctly because in the first treble section especially, the
strings were VERY low on the pin. One or two were almost resting on the
plate. Is this normal? I'd appreciate any information anyone can give me
about this. (Yes, I DO plan on talking to Kent Webb about it.)  :-) Thanks.

Avery

___________________________
Avery Todd, RPT
Moores School of Music                  (__)
University of Houston                   (oo)        Mathematical Cow
Houston, TX 77204-4893         /---------\/     (Developer of cow-culus)
713-743-3226                  / | x=a(b)||
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atodd@uh.edu                    ~~      ~~
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