What do you tell a 90 year old lady....

[jolly roger]

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Hi Willem,
                 That's a tough one.  But I have a suggestion for you to
check.
If the bass end damper rod hanger is bent, or the bushing is badly worn, very
little pressure on the pedal can cause the first dozen or so dampers to start
to lift before the others.
If there is no damper follow, (should be 1/8") it will give a similar symptom.
Double check to make sure that all the dampers lift from the strings evenly.
Replace bushing or bend hanger to correct.

When all damper levers are evenly loading the trap work, quite a bit of
pressure on the pedal is needed to get them to start lifting.  The clue is the
bass damper only bleed.
If the bushings are good, remove the damper rod and check the 3 hanger
positions with respect to the rod on a good flat surface.
The 1/8" follow is very important on the bass strings, the treble is a little
more forgiving.
Damping can be significantly improved on these models, by installing tricord
damper felt on the first 6 tricords.  

The previous tech could have changed the dampers, when the above was the cause
of the problem.
The damper bleed and a light foot on the pedal was just the symptom.
It's an easy problem to miss.

Regards roger



At 10:06 PM 3/1/01 -0500, you wrote: 
>
> .... who insists the pedals aren't working right? 
>
> Situation. Lady approaches me at church and tells me her last tuner did 
> something wrong to her pedals. I got there today. It's a Acrosonic, and the 
> last tuner put on new bass dampers. When she played, she kept her foot on
the
>
> sustain pedal, and then complained that the bass notes kept ringing. For
a 90
>
> year old, she is pretty alert, and played half way decent. When I played, I 
> used the pedal like you're supposed to, lifting my foot when the chord
would 
> change. She looked at me and said, "I have been playing for a long time,
and 
> I never lift my foot like you do. I just kept it down all the time. That is 
> the way I have always played. But now the piano just keeps on sounding. Why 
> is that? What is wrong with the piano?" I tried to convince her there is 
> nothing wrong with the piano. But how do you tell a 90 year old lady she 
> doesn't know how to pedal correctly?   
>
> Willem 




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