[CAUT] Steinway Pedal Lyre Regulation After Reconditioning

[Ed Foote]

 Paul writes:


 Is it typical to adjust their thickness in some way?  I have on occasion seen felt on top of the cushion to adjust the rest position, but obviously in this case I don’t want the rear of the pedal to be any higher than it is now.

        Before you decide where to adjust thickness, you may want to make sure all the various levers are near their optimum position. It would be a mistake to shorten the pedal rods because the pitman was too long.   The pitman simultaneously contacts two rotating surfaces at it's ends, so their angles repsective to one another bears a close look. Often there have been extra pads or felt added to these surfaces, which increases the pitman's effective length.    I think it is best to arrange all three components to minimize the friction, so get the tray and damper lever working together, first.  
      I want the damper  lever to be at such a height that the pitman is at 90 degrees to it when the pedal is half depressed. This not only minimizes the scrubbing motion  but also allows maximum control right where much half-pedaling occurs. Of course, you must have the damper tray at the correct height for all this to mattter, which means the underlevers have to be at the right height respective to the key end felts. 
    A little off subject, but...... The off-set centers of rotation of the damper tray and underlevers create ,imho, unacceptable tolerances in setting the upstop rail.  Since the pedal will lift the underlever's center, there must be extra room beyond where a key would lift the underlever.  When the damper pedal is set to lift the dampers almost as high as the keys, and the upstop rail is set to touch the underlevers when they are lifted by the key end felts, you will find an increased amount of travel in the underlevers when the pedal is not employed.  This discrepancy can be minimized by minimizing the lost motion between tray felt and underlever, coupled with a slightly shorter lift of the dampers by the tray.  However, if the tray stops too short of where the key lifts the dampers, you will get an impact feeling when playing with the pedal down.  
Regards, 

 

Ed Foote RPT
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
 

 

 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100815/046e12cd/attachment.htm>