Repost: Help! My capstans are too short!

[Greg Newell]

Tom,
         Just a real quick check. Make sure that the action brackets are 
firmly seated on the studs. That could easily affect your lost motion 
adjustment.

Greg


At 02:08 PM 5/27/2002, you wrote:
>List  (Hope this isn't a redundant post...I mailed this off this AM at 10:08,
>and as of 1PM it's still not on the list, so here it is again.
>
>I'm putting back together a Cable (Conover) 44" studio console and this AM I
>had a few minutes, so I thought I'd take out the considerable lost motion
>(1/8" at the front of the key!) and found that the capstans aren't long
>enough to eliminate the lost motion.  The capstans are not short ones,
>either.  They are 1 1/8" in total length, but to sit tight in the key they
>protrude 15/16".
>
>I tried raising the key height but that didn't help.  I could put new
>backrail felt in, which I think would help a little bit, but the present
>backrail felt doesn't seem overly worn or compressed so it probably wouldn't
>make that much difference.  The wippen felts have a depression where the
>capstan sits, but doesn't every piano?  The depression doesn't seem excessive.
>
>I did change the hammer blow distance which I assumed caused the lost motion,
>but I've never had a situation where there was so much lost motion it
>couldn't be compensated for, so I'm looking at other causes.  When I got the
>piano there were no cushions under the hammer rail at all and the blow
>distance was close to 3", so I set it at 1 7/8".  Maybe I should increase the
>hammer blow distance to 2" or 2 1/2".  That certainly would help.  I got the
>1 7/8" from the Piano Handbook.  I wasn't sure exactly which of the models
>listed under Cable referred to mine, but the largest hammer blow distance
>listed for any of them was 1 7/8".
>
>The piano did have some structural damage to the case which we repaired.  One
>of the legs and the horizontal piece connecting the leg to the case at the
>bottom was loose, and was reattached.   Maybe this changed the level of the
>keybed and contributed to the lost motion?
>
>Other things I've done to the piano that I don't think would cause this but I
>should mention to give the complete picture are:
>     new keytops
>     new damper felts
>     new damper flanges (the old ones were plastic)
>
>The client is looking forward to getting the piano next weekend...
>
>Any thoughts on a solution?
>
>Thanks,
>Tom Sivak

Greg Newell
mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net