When to do it

[Ward & Probst]

Keith,
The reason they are set "high" is two fold: the most important is that as
the piano is transported, delivered and played there will be compression of
hammer butt material, back rail cloth and most everthing else that will
compress- this tends to increase lost motion. In anticipation, Yamaha (and
many other manufacturers set capstans "high" just as they tend to pitch
pianos sharp before delivering to dry areas. The second reason is
production- it is much quicker to set a hammerline tight rather than spot
on. But if you want the definitive answer, be in Reno and ask one of the
Yamaha Team.

Hope this helps,
Dale
Dale Probst, RPT
Member, TEAM2001
PTG Annual Convention
Reno, NV --July 11-15, 2001
email: wardprobst@cst.net
(940)691-3682 voice
(940) 691-6843 fax
TEAM2001 website: http://www.ptg.org/conv.htm



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pianotech@ptg.org [mailto:owner-pianotech@ptg.org]On Behalf
Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2000 7:37 AM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: Re: When to do it


>This phenomina, "set just a tad high", is actually intended by the Yamaha
>piano makers to be there in new verticals.  I remember hearing this
>mentioned by the instructors during one of their classes at a convention.
>Unfortunately, I don't remember the reason for doing so.
>
>So applying any method of removal of this "set just a tad high" thing on
>new Yamaha verticals defeat its purpose for being there.
>
>Keith McGavern


Well, I do remember my reasons for starting to do this. There are two. The
first was common complaints of repetition problems, traceable to the fact
that the capstans were set too high. The second was that enough settling
occurred in the next year or so that it was necessary to re regulate the
capstans if they were adjusted to relieve the complaint from reason one. I
assume that these capstans are left high in the first place because of
reason two. Trouble is, that had the secondary effect of producing reason
one. Since I feel that the immediate customer complaint has priority
(within reasonable mechanical limitations) over manufacturers' allowances
for anticipated settling, this gets everyone off the hook without wasting
time duplicating effort after the action settles down. One nice "feature"
of my dodge is that it's nearly instantly reversible. Any other tech who
happens along and sees what I've done can restore the original capstan
adjustment and repetition problem to like new condition by pulling out the
bushing cloth. It shouldn't take more than 15 seconds even if he drops his
tweezers twice.

So what do you tell customers with new Yamaha verticals who complain about
repetition problems to get them to put up with it until next year? Mine
don't want to hear that.

Ron N