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Dave,
<p>The scary part is to think that if it was okay a month ago, it is possible
that a month from now you'll have to go back and undo everything you just
did. Don't lose any sleep waiting for it to happen, though.
<G>
<p>I've had the happy experience of finding the action sloppy on a spinet
with lots of lost motion, adjusting everything to specs, then needing to
undo some of the work several months later because the jacks wouldn't slip
under the hammer butts. The lady knows it needs humidity control,
but it's one of those families where money seems to be in constant short
supply.
<p>Regards,
<br>Clyde
<p>Piannaman@aol.com wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE><font face="arial,helvetica"><font size=-1>Today
I went out to service a Seiler model 131(top of the line with magnetically
assisted action) that is around 3 years old. The owner complained
of dampers not working.</font></font>
<p><font face="arial,helvetica"><font size=-1>When I arrived at his home,
I found that the piano was so far out of regulation that I felt obliged
to look for structural damage in the instrument. I have never seen
a piano so far out of whack. There was no cracked plate, no warped
keybed(it has a metal frame under the keyboard), nothing out of place,
no signs of anything broken. The hammers were between 1/4 and 1/2
inch off the rail, and most of them blocked against the strings when played
with a moderate to hard blow. I thought of trying to raise the action
bracket bolts(the ones they rest on on the keybed) to raise the entire
action up a small amount, but they were as high as they could go without
bending the nose bolts upward.</font></font>
<p><font face="arial,helvetica"><font size=-1>I figured it was a humidity
problem that had caused some swelling. That's a helluva a lot of
swelling, though. I ended up having to turn the capstans down more
than one complete turn, then re-regulate the let-off and the back checks.
It came out fine, but I am wondering why this happened. According
to the lady of the house, it went from good to unplayable in about a month.
It was almost as if someone had given a toddler some tools and told him
to go play with the action.</font></font>
<p><font face="arial,helvetica"><font size=-1>Anybody ever seen anything
like this in a really high quality instrument?</font></font>
<p><font face="arial,helvetica"><font size=-1>Dave Stahl</font></font></blockquote>
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