We deal with them regularly at North Bennet Street School in our rebuildings. If the whole unit needs to be lowered or raised slightly, we take fairly large pliers or vise grips, grab the hanger rod - not the sostenuto blade - and bend up or down. You'll be surprised that it will take some bending. You can adjust the "in and out" position - just remember, you can rotate the hanger rod, it is threaded, but you have to rotate in full turns only. Should be obvious. If you choose to replace the back action completely, you will probably have to remove the hanger rods and relocate slightly higher on the belly rail. Debbie Cyr North Bennet St. School 617-227-2357 508-202-2862 cell In a message dated 9/20/2010 10:35:43 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, johnsond at stolaf.edu writes: Hi- Just last week I was in exactly the same situation. I don't see many original old M&H grands here so this was new to me also. Piano owner is a piano faculty member who recently returned with his find from the west coast and was standing there with me while I had to decide what to do. I politely exercised the option to phone a friend and would return another day. In my case it mostly needs to be lowered slightly, but I'm concerned that bending the hanger bracket will damage the hole in the rail. Removing it first, then bending and reinstalling to same place, seems like too much trial and error. I doubt my bending pliers will work on that size rod, but could give it try. Easy to see why this design never took off. I'm open to any other suggestions also. thanks, Dennis Johnson __________ On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 7:47 PM, Greg Granoff <_Gregory.Granoff at humboldt.edu_ (mailto:Gregory.Granoff at humboldt.edu) > wrote: Dear List, I’m assisting/guiding a friend and university colleague on a fairly thorough restoration of an M&H ‘AA’ from 1926. The problem is the sostenuto system does not work—there is no way the sost rail can make contact with the tabs as it is simply too far away on a horizontal plane—and yet there is no adjustment whatever on the brackets which would bring it closer. There is no evidence that anyone has ever messed around with this assembly, yet there is no way the system could work with the current setup—in fact, we are beginning to wonder whether it _ever_ worked at all. It looks as though it might be necessary to remove the brackets from the belly rail and make them able to drive deeper into said rail if the system is to function. I would rather wait to do any creative bending until other paths are exhausted. Question: I’m wondering if anyone has any direct experience in the removal/insertion of the sost brackets in the belly rail in an instrument of this vintage. Are they screwed in?—driven in?—anyone know? Thanks for any suggestions/knowledge about this. Greg Granoff Gregory J. Granoff RPT Staff Piano Tech Humboldt State University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100920/b1a0a7fe/attachment-0001.htm>
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