Wippen Spring Puzzle

Maxpiano@aol.com Maxpiano@aol.com
Sun, 16 Mar 1997 08:34:21 -0500 (EST)


List -

Recently someone - I forget who - puzzled over a spring that had somehow come
loose from its cord on a grand wippen flange.

I ran into this situation on a Samick grand yesterday.  Three springs were
flopping freely.  The cord had come unglued on one (CA did the trick) but on
the other two, the glue was intact.  I noticed that the other two cords were
shorter than those around them, and as I was hooking the springs back, I
noticed a broken strand extending from the point of the cord loop.

My theory is that during speedy assembly the tip of the spring caught one
fiber rather than seating properly in the loop, and that one fiber eventually
broke.

Fixing these, however, did not rectify the problem the action was out for - a
knock when a few keys returned.  As it turned out, backchecks were colliding
with the sostenuto rail.  Since the hammers were checking properly and the
sostenuto needed no adjustment (and I was not about to mess with that), I was
able to ease the situation by backing out the screw in the bass (under-?) dog
so that the action did not go in quite so far.

I'm for the underdogs, especially those being flamed.  But that's another
matter.

Bill Maxim, RPT     Greer, SC




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