Steinway Damper Problem

[Ron Torrella]

Scott Jones used to say that you can use duckbill pliers to move the wire
up in very small amounts if you loosen the screws slightly.  You brace the
pliers against the damper block (Steinway refers to it as the "underlever
top flange"), squeeze the wire and "leverage"  the wire up (downward
motion of handles, pliers rock on the block, bills have upward motion). 
Not sure about going down, though.  Problem you'll find is that the screws
have probably made a ding in the wire. So, if the screw is anywhere near
that ding, it's likely to want to slip back into the ding. 

You're in a tight spot if you don't have several hours to do fine
regulating because, ultimately, you'd want to pull all of the dampers,
lightly sand out the dings (I use crocus cloth), and ream out the damper
blocks.  The problem you'll run into, invariably, is that now you'll
notice that the wires aren't bent to properly match the location of the
damper block's hole in relation to the corresponding guide rail hole.
Unless you spend the time correcting that problem, you're going to be
hard-pressed to do fine regulating.

My recommendation: If the pianist isn't complaining about it, leave well
enough alone until you can spend a day or two doing the job right.

Ron Torrella, RPT
Piano Technician
University of Michigan		   "Dese are de conditions dat prevail."
School of Music						--Jimmy Durante
734/764-6207 (office/shop)
734/763-5097 (fax)
734/572-7663 (home)

On Thu, 1 Oct 1998 musutton@alpha.nlu.edu wrote:

> Dear List,
> 
>     I'm working on a 1981 Steinway D.  Among other things, the dampers are
> not as even as they should be- uneven lift both from key and tray.  When I
> started to refine them, I found that the collets on the underlever blocks
> (and maybe the holes in the blocks) are very tight. I can't get a fine
> regulation of the dampers because the amount of force needed to overcome
> the friction confuses the issue too much. Normally I would expect the collets
> to slip freely over the damper wires.  Ideally I would remove the dampers
> and drill out the collets.  This piano, of course needs more than can be done
> by performance time. Here's the question:
>    Is there some technic I don't know about to do a fine regulation on dampers
> with tight collets?
>    Thanks.
> 
>   -Ed Sutton
>   Northeast Louisiana University
>   musutton@alpha.nlu.edu
> 
>