<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2912" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Howdy all,</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>OK, I'll admit it, I've lived a protected life and have hardly ever worked on old grands.  I have a friend--I can't believe she did this-- who bought a tiny, old (1908) refinished and re-whatevered Kimball grand.  She got it and THEN she called me.  Ahem.  Well, the finish job is quite good, the stringing job a little less than mediocre and the dampers are a mess, but work better than the action. Yikes. The one redeeming thing is whoever did the work, used some Abel prehung hammers--so I believe I can count on those being right.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>While looking things over, I noticed that there was felt in the repetition spring slot.  Just wondering if any company ever actually used felt in that slot or some-buddy was trying to solve a noise or gunk problem.   I suppose it's a case of the latter, since the felt didn't seem quite at a dirty and petrified as the other action felts/cloth.   I meant to weigh off a sampling of notes to check for friction, but I was running low on time and got distracted.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Thanks,</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Barbara Richmond, RPT</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>near Peoria, IL</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>