Bob, Put your cheek blocks in, to locate the action fore and aft. Fenton ----- Original Message ----- From: Bob Tate To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 7:36 AM Subject: [pianotech] Broken Grand dampers Hi people, I've had to be away because of a bad back--still hurts like crazy. _______________ I believe a major problem may have just happened with my Estonia 190. I've been working on getting the una corda pedal to be just as I want it, or rather make certain the hammers hit the strings in just the right place when it's depressed. (i.e., not how depressed I feel right now) Here's what happened: this morning, I made a minor change to a hammer flange position. I put the action back in the piano. When I pressed the una corda and let it return, the alignment looked as I wanted it, the damper barely missed the left string at full una corda. The shift works properly. Next, I pushed down the damper pedal. All the dampers lifted as expected, however, when the pedal was released, the entire set of dampers hung, just above their "at rest" position. I checked the action to make certain it was properly seated on the key bed and in the piano as far back as it could go. It is. I tried the damper pedal again. This time, on the damper return, I heard a "creeeek" or rather, "creekcraaack." And the dampers still hung slightly above their at rest position. Not liking that "crack" sound; with the damper pedal not depressed, I lifted and let drop, each damper head, manually. All worked as expected, except E2 (the last damper before the end of the bass bridge and before the bass/treble strut). Lifting it, I felt a little, loose up/down and side to side, wobble. Letting it drop, maked an audible "click," then, "thud" as it returned to where it started. The thud sounded like wood on wood. I pulled the action. Looked at and wiggled the damper flanges and wires, checked for loose screws, and saw/felt nothing wrong. With the action still out, I checked the sostenuto, which as had the dampers, been working perfectly. The sostenuto is a complete mess: dampers lift haphazardly or not at all. (The tabs all look in-line.) Not having much grand damper repair experience, I returned the action and have stopped. I've called for reinforcements. I'm afraid this may be a major problem: a broken damper rail flange or even rail itself, broken damper return spring? Any ideas of what I might be able to check, without taking apart the damper mechanism (and probably making matters worse)? --I know of nothing more I can do or will do, lest you have a suggestion. what we know is: the dampers hang barely above the strings when "at rest," the manual lifting of E2 (last damper before the bass strut) makes an audible "click" and then, wood-on-wood "thud" when allowed to drop to its rest position, the sostenuto is a total mess, the shift works okay. I won't touch it, unless it's something easy to check; but, I'd like to have ideas as to what it might be. Thanks, Bob T ______________________________________________________________________ A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090122/57a9c034/attachment-0001.html>
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