S&S alignment

[David ilvedson]

Ken,

You need to be at the piano when trying to figure this out!

> I have encountered an unusual problem with a 1952 S&S 'M'. Simple
> regulation, right, but the alignment of hammer to wippen to capstan seems
> to be farther off as you go. The hammers were almost all striking too far
> to the left (you know, where you have to use the shift pedal to tune
> unisons). 

OK, so before you did anything the majority of hammers were 
striking to far towards the left or bass side of their unisons.  At 
this point the wippens must have been off towards the right of 
their hammer shank knuckles and the capstans were off 
towards the right of the wippens?  I say this because of what 
follows...
 
On my workbench I have simulated shimming out the frame stop
> block to correct this and by shifting it almost 1/8 inch (!) and spacing
> hammers as far as I can to the treble, they line up ok with my string mark
> gauge. 

So you shimmed the keyframe 1/8" towards the right/treble 
and that wasn't enough to align the hammers to the strings so 
you also spaced the hammers to the right/treble to finally align 
to string marks.

The wippens are farther still to the right (you know, where the
> knuckle rests on one half of the rep lever only) and the capstans are
> already off center to the right, 


so correcting the wip spacing will make
> the capstan placement worse (you can look straight down on the action and
> see the edge of each capstan between the wips.  I'm not sure til I get back
> to the piano whether or not I am in trouble with the damper/key end felt
> interface by having shifted the action frame over

It would be nice to know where the damper assemblies were 
striking the back of the key.  

 I am reluctant to
> relocate the action stack, though this seems to be what they should have
> done in the factory 40 years ago. I may be missing something here, but I am
> getting increasingly more frustrated as I try to get this piano lined up
> right. Has anyone run into this kind of situation before on a Steinway. Any
> words of advice, if not encouragement? (I should note the piano has all
> original parts, etc.)
> Ken Jankura RPT (Real Phrustrated Technician)
> Newburg, PA

It sounds like you need to see if you could slide the stack 
towards the right/treble. The problem is will the action 
brackets be hitting the keys next to them.  If you have the 
room it will solve the problem.  You will need to add some 
wood for under the brackets probably.  You will have to align 
the back checks to the tails.  Moving the stack will better 
align the capstans to the wippens.  Then compromise 
between shimming the bass side keyframe stop (can't find its 
name in Mason's book) and aligned hammers.  These will 
better align the hammers to their strings and the knuckles to 
their wippens.  

Hope this helps and I'm not off in left/bass field...



  
 


David Ilvedson, RPT
Pacifica, CA
ilvey@jps.net