Action noise/piano teacher on the edge of lunacy

[Roger Jolly]

Hi Chris,
            You may be suprised to find that the jack stp button felt is
hard, this is a common problem with Samick's, they have finally changed
from a woven felt to a little thicker non woven type and dopped the spoon
back to accomodate the change. 
Two checks that I use to identify what is causing the the problem.
1, take a long medium thick needle, work it between the knuckle core felt
and leather, roll it from one end of the knuckle leather to the other. this
will slightly stretch the leather and reduce noise. Long term solution,
replace the knuckles.
2, Chop stick needle the the jack button felt and note noise reduction.  If
this is the cause the long term solution is to replace the button felt and
reset the spoons.

I am no familiar with the Seiler's, but some pianos that I have worked on
have a synthetic drop screw leather that hardens and creates quite a racket.

Just some food for thought
Roger



At 10:25 PM 21/05/00 -0400, you wrote:
>I have a customer with a 2 year old Seiler grand (6') that has an audible 
>sound (pa-dunk or pa-da-dunk) as the hammer returns and the knuckle lands on 
>the repetition lever.  This is obvious when playing mf staccato and it may
be 
>out of the ordinary for the age of the piano.  Everything else about the 
>piano is in first class shape, regulation and otherwise.  I'm a concert tech 
>and rebuilder and I've seen pianos as noisey as this though perhaps older.  
>I've found that by scuffing the knuckles a bit that key is quieter for a 
>while.  I think the rails transmit a lot of sound but before I call the 
>factory I thought I'd throw this out there. 
>Chris Glattly/Rochester NY
> 
Roger Jolly
Saskatoon, Canada.
306-665-0213
Fax 652-0505