[pianotech] moving the wippen heal

[David Love]

Sorry, that should be "heel"-- damn spell checker.   

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of David Love
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 3:02 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: [pianotech] moving the wippen heal

Caution, this has to do with pianos.  

Had to relocate a set of wippen heals after moving the capstan.  Often I
just cover the entire heal with felt if there's a problem with the new
capstan position contacting the wooden edges of the heal.  In this case I
didn't want to do that so I wanted to figure out a way to remove the heal
and relocate it.  I could have just trimmed the entire heel off with a
bandsaw and then bought a new set of heals but preferred to try and salvage
what was there.  In this case I needed a 4 mm move.  I marked and drew a
line that distance from the original heals first for indexing the gluing of
relocated heal, you can see that a bit in the first photo.  Then to remove
the heal you first have to clamp the wippen in a vice.  I used some two
sided tape to attach these wooden strips so I could clamp that lower part of
the wippen without interference from the wider flanges and posts (second
photo).  To remove them I took a sharp chisel and ran it under the thin glue
bead at the edges--kind of rubbery stuff (third photo).  Then with a very
light tap on both sides the heal it comes right off.  Safest to tap very
lightly just until you hear the joint break on one side and then switch to
the other side.  Didn't have any tear out on any of the removals as these
are mostly glued at the edges.  After the heal is removed I cut off the
nipple with a band saw--make sure you don't leave a high spot there, a bit
low is ok since the heal will be held in place by the outer portion.  A few
swipes over a sheet of sandpaper to clean it up and then glued it back in
place as pictured in the first photo.  I found the easiest way to work was
to flip the stack upside down and rotate it to a 45 degree angle (first
picture kind of gives you an idea) with the flange screws up so you could
just work across one at a time.  Use a short block on the end of the stack
to keep it in place.  Takes a couple of hours.  

BTW this was a early accelerated action Steinway (as you can tell probably).
A move to a 17 mm knuckle still left the ratio at about 6.1.  I wanted
something around 5.5

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com

Just an aside--I'd love to see the ability to post this way to the new list
put in place somehow--if possible.  This was fairly painless and easy.  But
a discussion isn't really needed.