Trap work (was Disgruntled)

[Susan Kline]

Happened to me, too. Samick grand, shorter than yours. I hoped it was an
isolated quirk unique to that particular instrument. Luckily I had more than
30 minutes to figure it out. I posted on 2/19/97:

>plus the bracket between the treble and bass sections that
>holds the sostenuto rail was put in too far to the left, so it colided with
>a backcheck when the soft pedal was used, completely jamming the top note of
>the bass section.

I fixed it by spacing the backcheck as far to the left as possible, and
sanding down the back right corner of it. Also minimized the shift a bit. It
had made an awful noise, as well. Given time and money, it would be better
to reset the sostenuto bracket further to the right. Plugging screw holes,
redrilling, would it throw something else off?

I guess one doesn't think to try the pedals <together> when prepping.

Happy Easter, anyway.


At 12:21 PM 3/29/97 -0500, you wrote:
>
>I'm sure most of you have been there done that, but now it's happened to me.
>Worked on a 6" 8"" Samick piano for a dealer on Thursday. The piano was
>being tried out by a church and I was called to give it a tune up and "quick
>check" so it would be ready for Easter services. The piano had been prepped
>sometime before and I proceeded with the tune and checked the action out for
>any problems. Dampers seemed fine and voicing was passable for the present.
>So what's the beef, right?
>Well, I got THE CALL around 9:00 Pm Friday  night. "Grinding sound when you
>use the pedalS" Upon further inquiry it seems that this noise occurs only
>when the shift pedal and the sostenuto pedal are used together. For whatever
>reason the church pianist felt a need to use this combination and the
>resulting noise screwed up their recording causing all kinds of bad feelings
>toward me, the store and the piano.
>Now, instead of enjoying my first free weekend since Thanksgiving, guess
>where I'll be at noon today? Of course I realize not all components of a
>piano can be relied upon to perform flawlessly for a given performance, but
>the responsibility for a thorough check was mine alone to make. The problem
>should have been detected and fixed under less demanding times. Now I have
>30 minutes to solve the problem.
>
>Have a wonderful weekend everyone
>
>Joseph Alkana RPT
>
>
>

Susan Kline
skline@proaxis.com
P.O. Box 1651,
Philomath, OR 97370
(541) 929-3971

"Nature favors the hidden flaw."