A Fallen Upright

[Steve Grattan]

Patrick C. Poulson wrote:
> 
> Hello All! I was called out to look at a 1906 upright that fell over on its
> back when the cleaning lady tried to move the piano by herself.  It fell
> squarely, and when I came to see it the piano was back upright.  No damage
> to bridges, very little to the action except for a few broken hammer shanks,
> and the keys were out of postion with some front rail punchings out of
> place.  However, when i looked closer I realized that the action had somehow
> shifted at the bass end so that the capstans were progressively less and
> less aligned with the bottom of the stickers, until by note 1 the capstan
> was barely making contact.  Also there was a lot of lost motion on every
> key.  I suspected that the keybed had dropped, but I couldn't find any sign
> of movement - no open glue joints, no splits, no movement when I tried to
> wiggle the keybed by hand, nothing that would indicate it had shifted.  My
> intial diagnosis is
>     1. The bass side support stud bent forward, pulling the action bracket
> forward which in turn had pulled the stickers out of line
>     2. The action bracket bolts had all bent upward, pulling the action up
> and off the keys enough to cause the lost motion.
>     Somehow I feel like I'm missing something here, becasue it seems that a
> fall hard enough to cause the stud and bolts to move would have left more
> visible signs.  I also find it hard to believes that the fall cauld actually
> cause them to bend so much, although that seems to be the only conclusion I
> can come to.  Has anyone every experienced this kind of problem, or would
> care to hazard an alternate diagonis?  Thanks for your help, Patrick
> Poulson, RPT

Hi Patrick,

Look for broken action bracket(s).  It also seems inconceivable that the
action studs and bolts would have bent - unless they were extremely
long.  The fact that you cannot wiggle it might simply mean that it is
jammed.You might want to try to remove the action and put it back in to
be sure that it is on the studs properly.  You could also have a split
action rail that the stickers attach to.  I encountered this on a 1907
Bush and Lane upright that tipped.

Good luck,

Steve Grattan, associate
lostchordclinic@ameritech.net