pesky pitman problem (was Horrble Example)

[Paul Dempsey]

>
>Hi Bill & list,
>    I just read your post this morning and have been scratching my head over
>a particular Kimbal Grand 5105 built in 1978, that I can't figure out.  It
>sounds like maybe you could be the person to help me with my dilemma.
>    I have made repeated visits to this piano to fix the sustain pedal.  For
>reasons that I have not been able to figure out, the pitman refuses to stay
>in place and every few weeks, after playing, I get a call that it is jammed
>again and the dampers are all locked either partially, or all the way off
>the strings.
>    The first time I was called was after the movers had left and I assumed
>it was the usual misplacement of the pitman in the move.  But since then,
>I've thought that maybe something was damaged in the move that I am not
>seeing.  For instance the arc of movement of the parts.  How should they
>look. Or any other ideas that might occur to anyone.  To me, everything
>looks normal, and yet something is not right.
>     I've tried everything I know, but can't figure out what is causing this
>to happen.  Before leaving each time, I sit and play the pedal 100-200
>times, trying to force it to malfunction, and I leave, assured that it is
>finally going to work. I've lubricated all the obvious places, removed any
>excess lost motion, retightened the brass collar around the top of the pedal
>rod........
>    Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I don't know of any more ways
>to look at this. And both my client and I are running out of patience.  I
>hope her's holds out a little longer.
>
>Jeannie Grassi, RPT
>Bainbridge Island, WA
>jgrassi@silverlink.net


All,

This is just a wild guess but it happened to me once so ......  

How is the pitman made? Is it a short dowel 2-3 in. long going thru the keybed with a short pin protruding from each end? One pin fits a hole drilled in the underside of the tray, the other pin fits a hole drilled into the trapwork?

Now, everything looks fine and YOU operate the pedal 100-200 times and nothin' bad happens? Ask the person who normally plays the instrument to play for a while. Watch their pedal release technique.

When this happened to me the player was depressing the damperpedal then letting their foot slide off the pedal, causing the damper tray/underlevers to smash back into place and bounce slightly. The trouble was that the pins in either end of the pitman were too short and one or the other would bounce out of place, causing everything to jam up. As long as the pedal was released normally, this never happened.

Your problem *could* be the fault of the player rather than the pedal.

Try lengthening the pins in the pitman.

Like I said... a wild quess.

Paul E. Dempsey
Piano Tuner/Technician
Marshall University
Huntington, WV
dempsey@ramlink.net