Yamaha click

[Ron Nossaman]

Ed fixed a Baldwin today, I fixed a Yamaha.

You know the pedal lever mounted on a block, with a coil compression spring
holding up the pedal. When the pedal was depressed, at a certain point, the
spring was compressed enough that it became the lever fulcrum and the
leverage lifted up on the hinge, causing a click. The nylon bushings in
these hinges work great as long as the pressures exerted are always in the
same direction, but when the pressure direction changes, there's nothing I
have come up with that keeps them quiet. The fix was to take the spring
out, haggle a couple of turns of the coil off with my poor old abused side
cutters, and put everything back together. There was still enough expansion
pressure to hold the pedal up so everything works, but not enough to lever
the weight off of the hinge at full depression. Worked great. As I was
trying to cut through the spring, I was telling the customer that "I hope
this works", trying to sound concerned, "since I can't go back". She was
duly impressed when it was back together and worked quietly, but I'd tuned
for her for a couple of years, and had done other repair work for her, so
she really wasn't worried as I wrestled the spring around the floor. 

Beautiful day today too, up in the sixties after Tuesday night's snow... or
was that last night? Good grief, is it Friday yet?


Ron N