>Friends, > >The last piano I tuned today was a 1998 Samick vertical, model JS-112. >If I adjusted the muffler bar so the hammers would just hit the felt >when it was engaged, the hammers would catch on the felt when the bar >was disengaged. Is there any way to make this thing work properly? > >Regards, >Clyde Hollinger Hi Clyde, Kent's suggestions are good, but like he said, it just ain't designed so pretty good (or something to that effect, but much more diplomatic). The leverage proportions are wrong and the rail needs to throw farther with the available pedal travel. You know me. If they didn't leave me room to make it work with the built in adjustments, I immediately want to modify the sucker so it will work. I don't remember off hand how the Samicks are set up, but I'm hoping it's like the Yamahas (which don't seem to have this problem). Can you improve the leverage moments down below? Is the hanger bolt in the last hole (farthest from the pin) in the pedal? If not, putting it there will let the rail travel a wider arc, unless something is in the way preventing it from going there. If that won't work, look up above. Up on the pivot arm, where the return spring is, can you bend the little bracket that the pull rod hooks onto a little in the direction of the pivot pin? That will increase the throw limits a bit too. Then, there's always the bellcrank(s), those little boomerang looking things in the linkage that convert vertically reciprocal pedal motion to horizontally reciprocal, and back to vertical to go up to the muffler rail. They're probably symmetrical, so there's no chance of improving the situation by turning them around. Make a new one with one of the arms about 5 or 6 millimeters longer than the other, to amplify the motion, and install it directly above the pedal - because it's easier to get to than the other one. That's probably the best bet anyway, in the long run. While you're making the one, you can go ahead and make enough to supply the after market of technicians finding themselves unable to make the original configuration work, and willing to spend a couple of bucks of the customers' money to fix it for real. Schaff will probably even stock them for us if there's a big enough demand. If Samicks' muffler system doesn't work like that... never mind. Ron N
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