Interesting Problems in a Seiler upright

[Farrell]

Did the top of the pinblock area allow for inspection? Dampers not lifting from strings and hammers blocking and all this happening over a short period of time are consistent with pinblock/backpost separation (and pretty major at that). If there is veneer or something covering this area I would suggest measuring the width of the back to plate dimension in numerous places along the top - should be consistent width all along the top. Presumably the pitch would also drop with a moving plate/pinblock. Where was the pitch (and I don't mean low, high, outside, inside or strike or fast or slow!)?

>From your description of this occurring over a short period of time, SOMETHING has moved. Did they mention dropping it down the stairs? 

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Piannaman@aol.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 11:16 PM
Subject: Interesting Problems in a Seiler upright


> 
> 
> Today I went out to service a Seiler model 131(top of the line with 
> magnetically assisted action) that is around 3 years old.  The owner 
> complained of dampers not working.
> 
> When I arrived at his home, I found that the piano was so far out of 
> regulation that I felt obliged to look for structural damage in the 
> instrument.  I have never seen a piano so far out of whack.  There was no 
> cracked plate, no warped keybed(it has a metal frame under the keyboard), 
> nothing out of place, no signs of anything broken.  The hammers were between 
> 1/4 and 1/2 inch off the rail, and most of them blocked against the strings 
> when played with a moderate to hard blow.  I thought of trying to raise the 
> action bracket bolts(the ones they rest on on the keybed) to raise the entire 
> action up a small amount, but they were as high as they could go without 
> bending the nose bolts upward.
> 
> I figured it was a humidity problem that had caused some swelling.  That's a 
> helluva a lot of swelling, though.  I ended up having to turn the capstans 
> down more than one complete turn, then re-regulate the let-off and the back 
> checks.  It came out fine, but I am wondering why  this happened.  According 
> to the lady of the house, it went from good to unplayable in about a month.  
> It was almost as if someone had given a toddler some tools and told him to go 
> play with the action.  
> 
> Anybody ever seen anything like this in a really high quality instrument?
> 
> Dave Stahl
>