Samick Hammer Centering was Re: Great Opportunity, Lousy Piano

[Z! Reinhardt]

Welcome to the World of Samick Pianos!

You'll need your concert skills -- the greatest impact with the least amount
of effort in the shortest period of time.(Money for doing the job properly
has a way of being unavailable when it is most needed.)

You'll need your "crazy kit" -- all those weird things you can cobble
together to make a quick-fix.  The fun part is to make your fixes look as if
they were meant to have been there all along.

You'll need your diplomacy and your best bedside manners to counter the
customer's exasperations of "but it's a new piano -- why is it having these
problems?"

More below ...

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan R. Barnard" <mathstar@salemnet.com>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 21, 2002 9:37 PM
Subject: Samick Hammer Centering was Re: Great Opportunity, Lousy Piano


: Terry wrote:
:
: " ... Most hammers only hitting left two strings ... shimmed the action
: frame for hammer alignment ..."
:
: A few months ago I encountered a brand new Samick (SG155, I believe) with
: the same problem. The only way I could center the hammers, short of
gouging
: wood out of the key frame, was to completely remove the unicorda stop
: adjustment screw AND the little pad the screw came up against.
:
: I meant to do a little research at that time to see if something else
could
: have been fixed or adjusted. Redesigning the piano seemed pretty
: brazen --but it made a good regulation of normal and unicorda hammer
strike.
:
: Whady'all think?
:
: Alan Barnard
:
:
OK -- let's get a closer look.  Are we talking about obstructions in the
treble side here?  I take it that the action wasn't shifting far enough over
with the stop screw and pad assembly in the way?  What about the stop block
in the bass side of the action cavity?  Have you adjusted that (adding or
removing shims as necessary) so the hammers would be centered under the
strings when the action is at rest?

Now -- sounds like you got the hammers centered the way you want ... but,
how well does the action play?  Is it shifted so far over that the key ends
are lifting neighboring dampers?  You may have a full-scale
spacing/travelling/squaring/etc. job on your hands to get everything aligned
to play at all, let alone to play properly.

Z! Reinhardt  RPT
Ann Arbor  MI
diskladame@provide.net