[pianotech] Plastic Damper Flanges - Replacement Results

[Terry Farrell]

Thanks for all the input on my little project. Here is a short report on what I did - and I got lucky!

First I laid out all the damper levers with the damper felt facing up. Then I arranged them order as well as I could based on wire bends, felt angles and in the bass, the size of the string imprint. Then I did a little bit of wire bending in the shop based on lining up the string grooves in the hammers with the grooves in the damper felt. After doing that the best I could, I took the action to the client's home and installed the action.

I figured it was worth a try before I soaked all the original dampers off and installed a new set of damper felt.

All but about five dampers worked well. A little wire bending on those five or so and I was outta there with a smile on my face!

Part of my luck for sure was that the original damper felt was still fairly soft and seemed to still be able to conform a bit to the strings. Everything dampened at least as well as most any other 50+ year old piano, so I considered it Mission Accomplished!

Terry Farrell