S specs

[Barbara Richmond]

Howdy,

Got a call to check out a 1950s Steinway S, the complaint, buzzing or ringing in the bass.  I heard hard, crusty dampers in the monos.  Did my best to take care of it (there had been, I think, Cola, spilled in the piano).  Then, you know how it goes, you take care of one problem and then another <or> others appear.  Action noise.  From what I can tell, the repetitions are original (red felt over the hammer rest), and the hammers, shanks/flanges have been replaced.  The hammers have the grey reinforcing, so they are older--and seem really big to me.  Yeah, yeah, I've complained about big hammers before.  :-)

I counted different noises on different notes, ranging from checking noise, at least one jack hitting the felt in the window and the jack button felt hitting the spoon.  I also noticed that someone had, it looked like, tried to put Teflon powder in the repetition spring slots.  The repetition spring tension is too high.

Also, son of a gun, the hammers are resting or practically resting on the rest felts.  I, of course, pulled out my blow distance gauge and, well, they are just a smidgeon off, so something is goofy.  My questions are:

Is there a "standard" bore distance for this model piano?

Does anybody know what the distances should be for the repetition center pin to keybed and shank/flange pin to keyboard?  I can always call Steinway in the morning, but if anyone has these specs floating around tonight, I'd love to know.

Thanks,

Barbara Richmond, RPT
near Peoria, IL

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20060816/5a18d2ba/attachment.html