<!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 6.00.6000.16608" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Not hitting the let off button is the result of not enough key travel in this case, maybe.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Fenton</FONT></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV> <DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=wimblees@aol.com href="mailto:wimblees@aol.com">Willem Blees</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=pianotech@ptg.org href="mailto:pianotech@ptg.org">pianotech@ptg.org</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Friday, February 15, 2008 3:32 PM</DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: Brentwood piano has low low keys</DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV><WBR>Julia<BR><BR>I sold Brentwoods for a while back in the mid 90's. Unfortunately, they are terrible pianos. I'm not sure if they are even being made any more. There was no factory quality control, so unless the dealer fixed them, what you see is how the pianos came out of the factory. If the customer is willing to spend the money, you might be about to make it a playable instrument. <BR><BR>First, key height. Don't go by how much balance rail pin is sticking out of the key. Go by key height and key dip. If the keys are level, and there is enough dip, then there is no need to do anything with them. Also, the keys being low has nothing to do with the jack not hitting the let off buttons. To get the jack tails to hit the let off buttons, you need to move the let off rail to get the jack tail to hit the let off buttons.<BR> <BR>But there was one adjustment I had to make this is unusual to get the action to play correctly. I'm trying to remember what the problem was, but I wound up putting balance rail cardboard punching between the action brackets and the wippen rail, to make it move forward. One effect this has, of course, is to center the wippen cushion on the capstan. Perhaps if you make that adjustment, the capstans can be turned down a little. <BR><BR>Let me know if this helps solve your problems.<BR>  <BR>,  <BR> <DIV style="CLEAR: both">Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT<BR>Piano Tuner/Technician<BR>Honolulu, HI<BR>Author of <BR>The Business of Piano Tuning<BR>available from Potter Press<BR>www.pianotuning.com</DIV><BR><BR>-----Original Message-----<BR>From: KeyKat88@aol.com<BR>To: pianotech@ptg.org<BR>Sent: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:20 am<BR>Subject: Brentwood piano has low low keys<BR><BR> <DIV id=AOLMsgPart_2_4378159d-cce9-4bcb-9834-a4b9801b7da3> <DIV>Greetings,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>            Servicing a Brentwood (serial 72722) ( year?) piano (which desparately needed a pitch raise and had some loose tuning pins), I discovered that the keys are terribly low. There were about 1/8" worth of punchings under the balance rail(!), and the keys are so low that the jacks dont even come in contact with the let off buttons on a keystroke. It's capstans are turned almost all the way up and the balance rail pins stick up about 1/4" out of the key shoe! I could hardly believe that this got out of the factory, let alone the dealer.</DIV> <DIV>  I suspect this animal may be a "wet piano". Are these pianos notoroius for this?  What to do? I think the answer is to shim up the <EM><U>entire</U></EM> balance rail...what say anyone? I there anything else I should check first?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Julia Gottshall</DIV> <DIV>Reading, PA </DIV><BR><BR><BR> <DIV><FONT style="FONT: 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF; COLOR: black"> <HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px"> The year's hottest artists on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards. <A title=http://music.aol.com/grammys?NCID=aolcmp00300000002565 href="http://music.aol.com/grammys?NCID=aolcmp00300000002565" target=_blank>AOL Music takes you there.</A></FONT></DIV></DIV> <DIV class=AOLPromoFooter> <HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px"> More new features than ever. Check out the new <A href="http://o.aolcdn.com/cdn.webmail.aol.com/mailtour/aol/en-us/text.htm?ncid=aolcmp00050000000003" target=_blank>AOL Mail</A>!<BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>