Election Day Puzzla

[Richard Moody]

Sometimes there is a broken jack spring.  You can't see it right away.  It
collapses down and still looks like a spiral spring.   With the hammer
pushed forward you should be be able to trip the jack with your finger and
hear it rebound on the butt felt.  If  this is feeble, as compared to
neighboring jacks, look closely at the jack spring or suspect the jack pin
is tight.   ---ric

----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Cole <tcole@cruzio.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 7:26 PM
Subject: Re: Election Day Puzzla


> Blaine, Tom and Greg,
>
> Thanks for your replies. I returned to the piano today with your
> thoughts in mind. I bent the bridle wire to give it some slack, I pulled
> the damper away from the string to remove the possibility of a dug out
> felt. I removed the hammer to feel the surface of the butt leather. I
> could not detect anything about this note that was any different than
> its neighbors. But still the jack catches when the hammer is pushed
> about half way to the string.
>
> I just could not leave without "fixing" the problem so I shortened the
> stroke of the soft pedal linkage so that the hammer is not put in this
> position that "causes" the problem. For the time being, though, the real
> problem will have to remain a mystery.
>
> Tom Cole
>
> bhebert wrote:
> >
> > Tom,
> > Is it possible that the hammer shank was glued in with one of those
large
> > shank-bevels that was popular onsome actions in the 70's?  The shank
angle
> > could be different on that hammer.  This would put the letoff at a
> > different point in the blow.  If this is what is happening, you might
have
> > to reset the hammer shank in the hammer butt or increase the dip beyond
> > normal.
> >
> > Blaine Hebert
> > bhebert@compuserve.com
> >
> > Tom Cole wrote:
> >
> > > A Story and Clark console, which otherwise works perfectly, has one
> > > problem: G3 (third note up from the bass break) does not play when the
> > > soft pedal is depressed. If you manually push the rest rail toward the
> > > strings and manually push on the back check, the same thing happens -
> > > the jack will not escape, unless you push fairly hard.
> > >
> > > So the problem is in the action. The shape of the butt and the
condition
> > > of the butt leather seem normal (for a Story and Clark). The string
cuts
> > > in the hammers are very light. Installing a thicker butt felt didn't
> > > help. There was no debris in the action.
> > >
> > > For you computer geeks, yes, I went outside and came back in again and
> > > that didn't help! :-)
> > >
> > > Any ideas?
> > >
> > > Tom Cole
> >
> > <