On Jul 18, 2008, at 10:36 AM, Ron Nossaman wrote: >> >> If you look at it from another perspective, how often does >> one need to regulate a sostenuto vs. how often would one >> need to get to the damper underlevers for a, say, action >> center problem (especially in some environments?) What >> would be a greater priority for an institutional >> technician? (Israel) > > I personally haven't found it to be a real problem getting past the > sostenuto for damper service problems, but then I don't do a lot of > panic concert patch work. In that lone instance, I can see an > occasional potential advantage. (Ron) I'm with Israel on this one. And I'm not talking about panic concert patch work. One example is a bad old Samick grand (80s vintage with all the warts) in a private school I service, where joint freeze-ups occur on a fairly regular basis. Yes, the whole darned back action should be re-pinned, re-bushed, replaced, whatever. And meanwhile the whole keyboard should be releaded, and the wipp assist springs regulated, etc, etc. If time and financial priorities allowed. Meanwhile, a top flange freezes, meaning that damper is stuck, meaning the piano is essentially unusable. To remove the underlever and deal with it (assuming a bit of Protek doesn't do the trick, and it usually doesn't), I have to virtually demount the sostenuto system (loosen most screws, remove a couple) in order to get enough clearance. And then reverse the process when I'm done. So a fairly minor fix becomes much more of a headache than necessary, kind of like actions that require ten or more screws to be removed before you can get at them, all to tighten one loose action screw. [And, yes, I check all the other top flanges while I have it apart (if there is time), but the freeze-ups still emerge unpredictably.] Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu
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