Associate members of the list, What separates us from the RPTs? (Besides passing the tests.) Certainly, experience would be one of the top items on the list. (Yes, the list is longer than that...) Knowing what to look for, having been there before. This past week, I added one thing to my list of things to look for. Next time... No RPT would have the following problem because he would never have made the same careless mistake I did. Therefore, I pose this puzzler to the associates of the list, because it would just be too easy for the RPTs to solve! I recently removed the lost motion from an Everett spinet. It had an 'acrosonic' type action where the stickers/lifters go above the end of the keys into a flange rail where the key capstan strikes them. I had to remove the key cover, of course, and then found that it was still difficult to reach the capstans under the flange rail. So, I removed the key upstop rail and removed each key by hand, and twisted the capstan. When I finished I was happy with the results. I left just a bit of lost motion to each key, hoping to compensate for increased humidity in the summer, and all the hammers moved along with the hammer rest rail when I pulled back on it. I put the upstop rail and key cover back on and left with my check. Another job (apparently) well done. One week later I got a call from that client: some of her keys didn't play all the time. Especially if they were played twice, the second time, no sound. Oh-oh... I opened the top of the piano and I could see that 5 or 6 hammers in octaves 3 and 4 were no longer resting on the hammer rest rail, but were about 1/2" in front of it! I KNOW I did not leave it in this condition! Obviously the jacks were holding the hammers forward, and that was what was causing these notes to play sporadically: the jack was unable to get back under the hammer butt. But how and why did this happen? In just one week? Actually, the client said this started to happen the very day I worked on the piano. Humidity was 28% on both visits, so it wasn't a change in humidity. The piano had not been moved, no water had been poured into the piano, the environment did NOT change in any way. The client did NOT open the piano and fool around with it in an effort to fix it himself. As I took the piano apart again to readjust the capstan height the source of the problem became obvious, but since it was something I should have noticed in the first place, and because no RPT would ever be so stupid as to find himself in this position, (having to return to fix a problem he should have been aware of on the first visit...) I pose this as an "associate only" puzzler. Any ideas? Tom S
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