A Fallen Upright

[John Lillico, RPT]

Patrick,

I suspect the sticker rail screws have stripped on the bass bracket causing the capstan alignment problem. I doubt the keybed would have "dropped" on a backward fall although the action brackets could have bent upward. If so, you now have a damping problem as well. Does the action sit on four balls or does the "bass side support strut" you refer to come out from the side of the cabinet?

Broken hammer shanks? I guess you have to wonder how many problems existed before it came tumbling donw.

John Lillico, RPT
Oakville, Ontario

>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