<html> <body> Thanks, William. Couldn't have said it better myself. Obviously! :-D Avery At 09:49 PM 9/5/2006, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""> Michelle,   I think Avery's point was that unless the hammers are not traveling in a straight line from rest to the point where they strike the strings, using traveling paper under the flanges is not the proper way to correct the problem.  Indeed it may then cause your hammers to not travel straight - now you've another problem to correct.   If the grooves are not lining up again, it is more likely simply spacing the hammers that needs to be done, not traveling (though I wouldn't be surprised if some traveling were required, but not to make the grooves align with the strings).   Regards, William R. Monroe     <dl> <dd>----- Original Message ----- <dd>From: <a href="mailto:michelle@cdaustin.com">Michelle Smith</a> <dd> .........Concerning the traveling paper, I just slipped them in temporarily to see if they would help rotate the hammer back into the grooves.  I didn’t want to do anything permanent yet.  In three of the four, it helped.  The grooves definitely need to be dealt with. <dd>  <dd>Have a great evening. <dd>  <dd>Michelle <dd>  <dd>  <dd>Hi Michelle, <dd>At 05:50 PM 9/5/2006, you wrote: <dd>Hi all.  A couple of days ago I asked the group about Naphtha and other liquids that might free up an old Steinway action.   The hammers were really stiff (1 to 1.5 swings) so I removed each hammer, lubricated, wagged them back and forth, and got about 5 swings out of them.  <dd>What did you lube them with? Naphtha? <dd>I was so proud of myself until I put the action back in the piano.  The action moved much better but two other things happened: <dd>  <dd>The piano had a more mellow tone--almost muffled in some areas <dd>About four notes have a strange small tinny sound almost like a guitar string is being plucked.  <dd>Is it possible that the strings arent hitting exactly in the same (deep) grooves as before?  I put some travel paper under the tinny notes which helped some but not all. <dd>Why did you do that? Were they not traveling correctly? Tinny notes don't necessarily mean they aren't traveling correctly. Travel the shanks, do the burning and then see what they sound like. Then do the hammer to string mating. Traveling isn't the way to correct a "tinny" sounding note. Necessarily! :-) <dd>Avery </dl></blockquote></body> </html>